"Burt, are we f***ups?"

To the casual observer, one that has only seen his movies, Sam Mendes must hate the institution of marriage. If you knew nothing about his life and longtime love affair with his wife, Kate Winslet, it would be easy to envision him as an embittered director, the product of a childhood divorce, who has dedicated his life to making movies about how bleak and depressing marriage can be. His filmography is not the stuff of bliss and romance. Of the five feature films he's directed, three are about marriage. The others are about war and gangsters. American Beauty is the gold standard for dysfunctional family dramas; and Revolutionary Road (starring his wife) is a bleak, depressing, heartbreak of a film that highlights the hopelessness of modern suburban life.

But Away We Go is different. While it still seems to snipe wildly at the institution of marriage, and more importantly parenthood, it does something his previous films did not: It focuses on the notion of love being apart from marriage. And in that simple distinction, Mendes manages to still skewer modern conceptions of domestic attachment while telling a beautiful, endearing love story at the same time.

Away We Go is a road movie. It is the story of Burt and Verona (The Office's John Krasinski and SNL's Maya Rudolph), a pair of listless early thirty-something's who have very little going on in their life. When Burt and Verona discover they are pregnant at the same time that they find out Burt's parents are moving away (the whole reason they are living where they are to begin with), they decide it is time to travel around the country and spend some time with friends and family in order to find a good place to settle down and raise their child. But while they love each other very much, Verona is dead set against marrying Burt, and as the two are confronted with all manner of parenting disaster in the form of their friends and acquaintances, these reasons begin to come to light.

Wonderfully acted and beautifully shot, Away We Go is a delightful little film that, much like American Beauty, reaffirms the hope that exists in life even when it appears that there is none. While focusing on everything going wrong with the world, he shines a light on that small section that is exactly right with the world and in doing so reminds the audience just why we live and breathe. It is a sweet, charming endeavor that probably would have been better suited to a fall release than the one it received during the summer. Fortunately, it is now out on Blu-Ray and DVD just in time for Oscar-screening season to kick into gear.

Sadly, the special features aren't exactly much to sneeze at, but are still worth a watch. There's a brief making-of that will give you a good idea of how they made the film and what they were intending. There are quite a few nice, small details that help fill in some blanks and really enrich your experience with the film. The second and final feature, on the other hand, is a bit different. It is a short doc on how the film attempted to be as environmentally-friendly as possible, lowering their overall carbon footprint. While they clearly cut around the grumbling from several of the people who weren't too happy about the pet project (you can hear it in a couple of voices) it had a lot of interesting tips and work-arounds for common problems.

Populated by an incredible supporting cast and held together by clean, wonderful writing, Away We Go is a surprising treat for anyone who enjoys thoughtful, heartfelt filmmaking. It debuts on Blu-ray and DVD on September 29 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

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