Noplace like home

Away We Go

Crit

Je suis un Montréaler! Well, anyway, that's what my neighborhood stands in for. A loving look at a house about a block down the street, and a look across the street to a house that's not exactly across the street, but hey, it's the movies. And the New Haven Preservation Trust plaque, complete with elm tree, isn't even CGI'd out. When the first glimpse of the 'hood appeared, fully a quarter of the fairly sizable crowd cheered.

Oh, and I liked the film better than I expected, having had my expectations lowered considerably by reviews. But good god: you know those stories where the key credibility problem is why the hell would such a together woman settle for such a megalosermeister? Well, here it's more like why would she ever have let the restraining order lapse after spending 5 minutes with him? Though I should acknowledge that someone else in my crowd--someone with a pair of Ys, which may or may not be significant--inexplicably found John Krasinski's Burt just as charming as Maya Rudolph's Verona.

But it is largely an exercise in fish-in-barrel shooting. What makes it tolerable, aside from the spectacular Rudolph, is that husband-and-wife screenwriters Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida make the fish talk pretty entertainingly.