Oscar®-winning heavyweight Sam Mendes (American Beauty; Road to Perdition; Revolutionary Road) here displays a happy knack for delicate, dark-witted indie comedy, deftly handling a laugh-a-minute script by celebrated authors Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers. TV superstars Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) and John Krasinski (The Office) play slightly shambolic married couple Verona and Burt, who are happily expecting but can’t decide where to raise their increasingly imminent infant. Theseparents-to-be are classic thirtysomething adolescents: shabby at the edges, used to having their own way, and not committed to very much except each other. Since their jobs are flexible, the world is their oyster: so just where is best to raise a child these days? With friends beckoning them from all corners of the States, they take off on a road trip. An incident-packed jaunt ensues: will they fall for Montreal, or zone in on Arizona? Kooky characters encountered along the way provide priceless comic roles for thelikes of Alison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels; the result is a superb balance of warmth, wit and cutting commentary upon some of the world’s best and worst approaches to parenthood.