How Sweet It Is

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

AWAY WE GO is a sweet little film directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. Krasinski, of course, is featured in the NBC TV series, “The Office,” and Rudolph was on “Saturday Night Live” for many years.

Here they play Burt and Verona, a nice young couple in their thirties who are about to have their first baby. Verona is six months pregnant.

Although she looks further along than that.

The movie starts with their going to visit Burt’s parents for dinner, who will be the only set of grandparents the baby will have, because both Verona’s parents died long ago.

At dinner, Burt’s parents reveal the surprising news that in June they are going to Belgium to live for two years.

Burt says, “You’re leaving a month before the baby is born?” and his mother says, “We’ve been planning this forever, Guys; you knew that.”

Now, the only reason that Burt and Verona are living where they are is to be near Burt’s parents, but because Burt sells insurance futures, they can live anywhere they want.

So, they decide to go on a road trip to visit friends and relatives in order to choose someplace to live where they can raise their baby.

First up is Phoenix, where they visit a woman whom Verona used to work with and her family. Allison Janney turns in a nice performance as the potty-mouthed Lily, who has a very pessimistic husband and two children who don’t pay attention to her, probably for good reason.

Then they make a quick trip to Tucson, where they visit Verona’s sister before they head up to Madison, Wisconsin, by train.

They have to take the train, because the airline doesn’t believe that Verona is only six months pregnant and won’t let her fly.

In Madison, they visit Ellen and her family, who is a professor at the university. Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a wonderful performance as a wacko hippie, but the visit does not go well.

Then they are off to Montreal and a visit with a couple they went to school with, followed by an unplanned trip to Miami to help out Burt’s brother and his sudden crisis.

AWAY WE GO brings to mind another famous saying by Jackie Gleason, and that is “How sweet it is.”

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”