Away We Go is such a colourful, down-to-earth but still cheerful little comedy that I had to a do a double check that the “Sam Mendes” listed as the director is the same Sam Mendes that’s made a career out of disillusioned anti-heroes and people making bad life choices. Yes, it surely was the same Sam Mendes, who directing a script written by McSweeney Publishing magnate Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida, finds material that is soulful rather than soul-crushing. An impressively intimate and, dare I say, cozy film, Away We Go is about the perceptions of adulthood and parenthood when the latter is getting precipitously close in your windshield.

Are you really as screwed up as you think you are? Am I going to affect my kid in a negative way? Am I mature enough to handle parenthood? Heady questions to be sure as Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) and Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) together look for some concrete, if not some easy, answers. Burt and Verona’s pre-parental stress also comes from the fact that they don’t know if they’re situated right hearth and home-wise speaking. They basically live in a shack in the woods, and at one point Verona remarks how they have a piece of cardboard as a window. While being a little more opulent than something done more in, say, the Unabomber style mode, Burt and Verona get to thinking that maybe they need to find somewhere else to raise a child, but where?

Helping things along are Burt’s parents Jerry and Gloria (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara), who are leaving for Belgium for two years within weeks of their first grandchild’s birth. Since Burt and Verona live in the area for their benefit, what’s keeping them from finding another little piece of earth to call their own? What a refreshing change to see a road trip movie featuring two mature adults, kind of like Parenthood meets Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Additionally, you have two winning lead actors in Krasinski and Rudolph who have a similar comedic timing that plays well together.

The thing about the film that kind of annoys is the quirkiness of the characters. Daniels and O’Hara are a low-key kind of zany as Jerry and Gloria, but others really go for the jugular. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton appear as LN and Roderick, two new age-y hipsters that believe in the whole family sleeping in one bed and don’t believe in transporting your kid around in a stroller. (“Why I want to push my children away,” LN says dreamily, missing the point.) I think the short term laughs you get out of these mental cases aren’t worth the shattering effect they have on the film’s laid back rhythm and down to earth vibe. Even Allison Janney, despite her sheer enthusiasm, is kind of biting as a mom in dereliction.

Overall, I found the film very positive, upbeat and quietly profound. After you get past the first-half, let’s call it, freak-a-thon, the pace cools and you can enjoy some low key laughs and drama with two very affable and believable characters. It’s short and sweet and to the point, and in no way feels like a Sam Mendes movie. I’m not sure if that’s a plus or a minus, but I give the man props because it can’t be an easy thing for the director to make himself unnoticed on a film. I can understand why though. This won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re looking for a film that’s no frills and satisfying on a story and character level, then Away We Go is worth the trip.