Away We Go -- spoiler free!

I spent my birthday going to see Away We Go, starring "Jim from the Office" and "That one girl from SNL." It's the kind of movie that had me at the trailer:

...Yes, the kind of movie the typical 20-something hipster can't refuse.

But as I watched it all unfold on the big screen, part of me grew indignant that I was suckered in. It was just TOO hip. Take the heart-on-sleeve dialogue and a couple of cool camera shots from Garden State, the outrageous characters from Little Miss Sunshine, and the pregnancy and all-for-love-prove-the-world-wrong naivete of Juno, and you've got something close. Throw in coming-of-age (which happens in the thirties, these days), a road trip (in a Volvo, of COURSE!), a beard and a pair of Clarks (on JIM of all people!), the perfect little soundtrack (which IS pretty good), and the line-drawing movie poster (hat tip to Wes Anderson, really) and you've got all the ingredients for a smash hit.

I didn't want to like it. I told myself it was getting old. Too predictable. Too formulaic. Too cliche. Too easy.

My point to Erica in the car the next day was about the isolation. It seemed the outrageous characters were simply serving to make the main characters feel further isolated. Any script can do that. Of course you'll feel isolated when interacting with lunatics. I said I would much rather see a script convey isolation when interacting with friends and family, the kind of isolation most people like you and me experience on a daily basis.

But the more I gave it the chance, the more I realized the movie was actually a fairly admirable feat. The issues it tackles are many and serious and never dismissed lightly. While the isolation might be dealt with through caricatures, the main issues aren't, and yet enough gracious humor is woven throughout to keep it light and hopeful.

And ultimately, it's a movie where love -- as in the true, messy, determined, committed (as committed as you can get with a woman afraid to marry) kind -- actually wins. And hope wins, too, as in the kind of hope that acknowledges it won't be easy, and that's just the point. And patience and kindness and sanity and simplicity and a good sense of humor? They all win too.

Idealistic? Sure. Naive? Maybe a bit, but it can't be all that naive with all the issues they're facing along the way. Idealism and naivete aside, it sounds a bit like the fruit of the Spirit, too. And if that's the case, maybe this kind of hipster movie isn't so bad after all. Maybe we could use a few more in Hollywood.

When the movie finished, my friend asked how it felt to watch myself on screen. I had to laugh about it. But if that's me and my life, I can't complain, and I'm kind of honored.