Last night we saw Away We Go. I liked it, with the standard disclaimer that I see few movies and tend to enjoy quirky, plotless independent films. Though reviews have been lukewarm at best, I decided I needed to watch this one.

For starters, it's a hardcore indielectual name dropper: written by Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and his wife Vendela Vida (also a writer, though I'm unfamiliar with her work), directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, for one) starring The Office's Jon Krasinski (who delighted bookish types all over by adapting DFW's Brief Interviews to film) and SNL's Maya Rudolph, with Maggie Gyllenhal and Jeff Daniels thrown in for good measure.

For finishers, it's summertime and what's a dude to watch? Transformers?

The plot in a sentence: Burt and Verona, quirky losers in love who accidentally get pregnant, unsuccessfully tour America looking for home only to find it within themselves. 

Had I not enjoyed this flick, tearing it apart would be easy work. The word banality comes to mind. Plotless yet somehow still contrived, the story never really begins and the ending feels unearned. Maya Rudolph is nowhere near hot enough for Hollywood leading lady status, and so pregnant that I was a little nervous the whole time.

Still, there was something wonderful about the two protagonists. They struggle with the dual diagnosis of unconventionality and imperfection, searching fruitlessly for role models. The two are earthy and ideosyncratic but also actually unique, not just conforming to a set of rules for nonconformists, ala stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. Krasinski is funny and, believe it or not, articulates a character who is similar to but distinctly not Jim from The Office. And Rudolph proves she can do more than mug for the SNL audience or do Whitney Houston impersonations.

The Goldlilocks couple tramp around the country sampling lifestyles like porridge, and the bears don't dissapoint. Though all the other couples are caricatures, they're damn funny. Alice Janney and Jim Gaffigan offend as negativist dog-tracking booze-guzzlers in Phoenix; Maggie Gyllenhal and her husband shock as holier than thou future hippies sharing the family bed in Madison, WI. The couple in Montreal just plain freaked me out with excesses of effort and emotion.

Through these stops, and others, Burt and Verona come closer to the realization that no one seems to have this parenting (or living) thing down, at least not in a way they'd be cool with emulating. Anyone who's tried to blaze their own trail (be it lifestlye, family, career, etc.), likely can identify with their panic. Without a guide, the two are forced to confront this crippling uncertainty. Not earth-shattering, I know, but it does feel real to me.

There's not much danger of plot-spoiling with this one, but I'll stop there just for good measure. If you think you might like this movie, give it a shot. Think Nick and Norah's for grown-ups who aren't worried about being cool. My guess is that if your like Egger's books you'll like his screenwriting too.