Comfort Films: Away We Go

Of late my desire to delve deep into the annals of moviedom to find gems of meaning and grit has abandoned me. I just don't seem to have the energy or will to invest in new stories at the moment. In frankness, my desire to write has also momentarily been quenched.

What has been driving me, is a yearning for the known; a continuous inner summons to sip from the familiar.

So, I portend to start a new little ditty on this here blog talking about why I find certain films familiar and comforting. This week: Away We Go.

What's lovely about this movie is that our two protagonists are lovely. And they are lovely because they love each other with all their being. (Sidenote: in the last six months or so, I've come to find that I've acquired this distinctive bad habit of starting sentences with "And". I know better than to do that, for it is wretched grammar, but for whatever reason I just can't help myself. I think I like the cadence it presents. Who knows... I blame the Bible, what with all those, "And Jesus wept," type sentences.)

The main characters of this small film are surrounded by a slew of questions. Most pertinent of the quandaries, and the impetus for the filmic adventure, is the need to find a new home. Through the various cities and set pieces (people included) we get no answers. We are merely given more questions. The ideal appears unattainable.

What makes the movie stick is that these two love birds deal with a realistic desperation by clinging to what they know to be true. Inside the scope of the film, all our hopeless protagonists can be confident of is their love for each other and their unborn daughter. That is sufficient. It has to be.

I relate to the married couple not from the status of being at a similar position in life (since I am not), but rather, that all I can hold to is that God loves me and will see move through this life. He'll see me through to the other side. I can desperately hold onto that, until my faith is made complete. Oh, for the day!

I reckon it would also be deceptive to not acknowledge that I greatly admire the romantic love the two leads hold for one another. If I am to marry, I would want to emulate my passion in such a manner as they do. They live out love, not merely speak it as the legions of Romeos and Juliets do. It's love in action.Yippeekayaay.

There.

Perhaps, when I speak of comfort films, what I mean to communicate is that there are places, inside the scope of certain stories, where I feel safe. It's like going back to that early memory of being loved by your parents as a child. A bright morning sun on a spring day before there was such a thing as school. This couple in Away We Go, they just seem like people that one could spend a very relaxing evening with --- knowing that even if something crazy were to happen, or if someone says something out of line, it'll be handled fair enough, and the world will go on merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...