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Check out: Away We Go

July 9th, 2009

I highly recommend the movie Away We Go, the newest from director Sam Mendes. I don’t think it’s for everybody, but for me, a dude really close to 30 who is in the first sort of nascent stages of starting a family yet who’s still waiting to discover what Adulthood is supposed to feel like, I think this movie was utterly, totally for me.

I won’t link you to the trailer or anything though, because with all due respect to my friends who worked on the marketing, this movie (like pretty much every movie) is better off seen totally cold, without anticipating the big moments that the trailer and commercials give away. So, don’t watch the marketing, but do see the movie. (Oh, and if you don’t like it — well, there’s no accounting for taste. I liked it. Let’s not argue about it, huh?)

Finally: take a look at John Krasinski up there. What do you notice?

He’s bearded.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the only mainstream, non-period American movie in a great while in which the primary romantic protagonist wears a full beard. Leave me a comment if I’m wrong; I’d like to know if there are others!


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  • does Luke Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums count? he loses it part way through.

  • danielchaves

    probably knocked up, but im not sure…
    will watch the movie as soon as it hits theaters here. so maybe in a year or two. or never. ill rent it when it comes out.

  • Jay

    Eh, Seth Rogen’s beard is pitiful in Knocked Up. It’s more like a lazy man’s week-old scruff.

  • TheHobo

    Clooney starts with a beard in Ocean’s 11. I think. Maybe.

    But it get’s shaved off. And Affleck, I feel, has featured partial facial growth in at least a few movies. Also, possibly, later shaved off. Hmmm….

  • kingsley

    I’ll wait til this movie hits the torrent sites.

  • Raj

    Didn’t the Jim Carrey character in Eternal Sunshine have a beard for some of the story. Admittedly it wasn’t ripe and it was meant to reflect a certain state of mind that hollywood perceives the unshaven to possess, but it was a beard nonetheless. I maybe wrong though.

  • mb

    Oh, yes, indeed he is bearded. Check out Krasinski’s review!

  • …X-Men Origins: Wolverine?

    *hides*

  • mb

    Oh, and Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Luke Wilson, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray all kinda fit the bill. Willis and Wilson aren’t the protagonists, and Wilson in Tenenbaums and Murray in Life Aquatic were a little while back.

  • David Malki !

    Romantic protagonists, Michael!

  • Steve Carrell in Little Miss Sunshine?

  • Didn’t Seth Rogen have a full on beard in Zach and Miri Make a Porno? That was last year.

  • Dave

    There wasn’t really much romance to the role but Edward Norton in American History X had a pretty good beard.

  • King Kong?

  • Zach

    Dennis Quaid had a beard in Smart People and he was the primary romantic protagonist. Also Steve Carrel had one in Little Miss Sunshine, so I guess it’s the thing to do when your trying to branch out from The Office.

  • Heather

    Um…Tim Allen in Santa Clause 2? Maybe not particularly adult mainstream, but he was the romantic lead. Then again, he lost the beard as the romance progressed, then grew it back for the climax…gosh, the mind boggles at the beard symbolism!

  • Generic1776

    Awesome film, not yet released, starring a SIDECAR+BEARD… but by golly, a SIDECAR!…. and way more awesome beard.

    The Best Bar in America Trailer

  • Generic1776

    You can call him a romantic protanganist… but leaning in the classically romantic sense.

  • Macneil

    Matthew Broderick in The Night We Never Met (1993).

  • Seth Rogen in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”.

  • Didn’t Billy Crystal have one in parts of When Harry Met Sally?

  • Jenny

    Do goatees count? If so, it’s all about Edward Norton in ‘The Illusionist’.

    Either way, I’m totally going to see ‘Away We Go’.

  • noseatbelts

    Once, Glenn Hansard has a beard, and that was last year.

    And Ron Perlman in Hellboy 1 and 2 definitely rocks sideburns and goatee combo, not to mention he wears his hair samurai style.

  • Ryan Gosling sports a beard through “The Notebook”. A bit more mainstream than “Once” and its bearded Glenn.

  • Aragorn had a beard.

  • Once wasn’t an American movie, and The Notebook, The Illusionist and Lord of the Rings are all period pieces. I’ll provisionally grant Zack and Miri, though I haven’t seen it so I don’t know if it’s a real beard or just up-n-down scruff. Also haven’t seen Little Miss Sunshine so I’ll have to take someone’s word that Carrell is a romantic protagonist.

  • Gl1tt3r

    I’m curious as to whether or not Seth Rogen is disqualified for shaving his beard clean off halfway through “Zack and Miri”? I can’t recall if it grew back by the end, but there were some important romantic scenes in which the beard was absent.

  • rich

    Hollywood doesn’t like the beard. Wasn’t there a film where (admittedly, way back) Matthew Broderick (so it must be going a way back) has a beard in the film but they used a picture of him clean-shaven on the poster.

  • I don’t remember Steve Carrell being involved in any (on screen) romance in Little Miss Sunshine.

  • I really wouldn’t call Steve Carrell a romantic protagonist in Little Miss Sunshine. There is mention of his romance gone wrong and he runs into the guy who spurned him in one scene, but that’s the extent of it.

  • Sean Connery in Entrapment (which is 1999).
    Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall (1995)
    Johnny Depp is somewhat haired in Chocolat (2000)

  • Spencer

    Steve Carrell definitely does not count as romantic protagonist. And Seth Rogen should be disqualified, as he is always percieved as a total slob who somehow manages to score with the ladies. What we’re looking for is evidence that beards can be considered normal and attractive.

  • David Malki !

    Legends of the Fall and Chocolat were both period pieces. Entrapment I’ll grant, though that beard is way more about Sean Connery being just a bearded dude in life than about the character he plays. So it was a DEFAULT beard rather than a beard by choice. (Which is fine.) Finally, as for The Night We Never Met (the Broderick film) — NOT ONLY was he indeed portrayed unbearded on the international VHS cover, HIS BEARD WAS ACTUALLY AIRBRUSHED OFF a bearded photo). Thus I cannot in good conscience give that film credit for its bearded protagonist.