by Tony Medley

Runtime 93 minutes.

Not for children.

John D. MacDonald was known as a writer of mysteries. He is best known as the author of the Travis McGee series. But MacDonald wasn’t just a mystery writer. He created some of the best characterizations you will find in fiction. Even his non-Travis books are deep and thoughtful. These aren’t Ian Fleming-like cardboard characters about whom JDM writes. They are thoughtful people and we get to know them and their feelings.

That’s what I kept thinking of while sitting through this new film by director Sam Mendes from a script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. While it is clearly a film that will appeal primarily to women, it really doesn’t fit in with the chick flick genre, even though it’s top heavy with feminine dialogue. In fact there’s a running joke about one of Verona De Tessant’s (Maya Rudolph) private parts.

Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) and Verona are a mixed-race unmarried couple expecting a child. The title refers to their gallivanting all over the continent trying to find a place to settle down. In each place they come in contact with weird characters, all of whom have lots to say about relationships and raising children. This should make most men squirm as it did me. All of the laughter was from the women in the audience, and there were lots of them. So I squirmed and looked at my watch a lot. I asked the guy sitting next to me who was with his girl friend if he liked it. He said, “so-so.” But in the end the dialogue is of such depth and so interesting and thought-provoking, even for a man.