Life according to Eggers
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under books, films
New Sam Mendes’s film is another one in the series of indy flicks. If you are not familiar with the genre, let me help, those are the films starring cute geeks (Micheal Cera is always welcome), just enough socially adjusted for a wide audience (most of them are high school or university students, if not, budding writers), but still a little bit on the weird side. There is no promiscuity in indy flicks, because SHE is the ONE. Well, since life is measured against songs of The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian.
At a glance, Away We Go is meeting most of these criteria, moreover the music of Alexei Murdoch is central to the story. What I believe gives more authenticity to the film is the script written by Dave Eggers and Vendella Vida, a real-life married couple, who based the film on their own experience before the birth of their first child. The main characters in the film, Burt and Verona, are making a roadtrip in order to find the best place to raise their child. They are meeting all kinds of freaks on the way, but the trip was not taken so they could learn something about themselves, so that one of life’s misconception could be shattered, they just wanna find a nice place to live. When they do, the movie ends. And the place is truly beautiful.
The life-likedness of characters is apparently Eggers’s speciality, as he started his writing career with a memoire appropriately entitled for under 30-year old A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. It makes you wonder how much one can be presumptious? Well, Dave has an interesting story to tell, not particularly unique, however the way he perceives things and then writes about them catches reader’s attention. Following the death of both parents in the span of just a few months, Dave took parental duties for his then 13-year old brother Christopher (called Toph in the book). They move to San Francisco and despite dirty dishes, pigsty of a house, playing games, by acting as a parent, Dave is growing up on his own, as well.
dave eggers's books by ari@flickr
eggers signing books by ari@flickr
In the meantime, Eggers founded literary journal McSweeney, started the creative writing workshops and won TED award for the contribution to public schools. Not everything he did was based on his life, recently Eggers worked as a scriptwritter of the film Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze, based on the story of Maurice Sendak.
Tags: away we go, books, dave eggers, film
