Lost in America
Studio: Criterion
Jul 25, 2017 Web Exclusive
On the eve of a big promotion, David is restless. He lies awake listening to Larry King talk to film critic Rex Reed about the state of movies and how to successfully watch them (Reed prefers empty screening rooms to being lumped in with the normies, it turns out). David isn’t listening to the words, but he is looking for any kind of white noise to drown out his own doubts and feelings of anxiety. He turns off the radio, and wakes up his wife Linda. Ever the sensitive sort, David takes issue with every way a half awake Linda responds to his concerns before storming off, threatening to sleep in the garage.
It’s a sign of things to come. David (Albert Brooks) isn’t happy with his ad executive job, but he’s financially stable and otherwise a functioning, responsible adult who has followed the rules his entire life. Linda (Julie Hagerty) is similar, and while David is so consumed in his own psychological push-and-pull, he fails to notice her own crisis. Perhaps she’s been so busy propping up her husband that she hasn’t been able to take the time to really think about the toll working in a windowless office for seven years has truly impacted her.
Lost in America works, then, as a bit of an escapist fantasy. David, expecting to be promoted, gets transferred from Los Angeles (where he just bought a new house) to New York to work on a new ad campaign for Ford. He flips out, tells his boss where to go – “but it’s Ford!” – and is promptly fired. Eight years down the drain. David convinces Linda to quit her job – failing to convince her for a quickie in her office first – and they buy a motorhome, and venture off to find the American dream…just like in Easy Rider, except in a house on wheels.
In case you didn’t realise by now, Lost in America is also a comedy. David and Linda are probably the people least equipped to just drop out of society one day, no matter how big the nest egg they’ve accumulated may be (in this case, $180,000 give or take). As we learn, the nest egg is basically a god, it’s their protector. Without it, they’ve got nothing. So, while that is a lot of money in a vacuum, this is a couple who have lived pretty high on the hog for close to a decade. Before they start on their adventure, it is obvious things are going to go sideways.
And sideways it goes. Mostly to humorous effect. It’s to Brooks’ credit as writer/performer/filmmaker that it ties together as a whole, too. But while the song choices and the composition of the screen are fine – the opening stroll through the house listening to Larry King provides plenty of context into their lives without overdoing their biographies – the dialog is where the movie sings. This is especially obvious whenever Brooks and Hagerty are sparring. Brooks could easily be an overpowering presence, and for a time it seems like Hagerty’s Linda is going to be little more than a meek doormat whom he tramples over. And while Linda is certainly at fault at a pivotal moment, it’s clearly a cumulative outburst based on years of putting David’s needs ahead of hers. The movie plays this dynamic beautifully, dishing out just enough information and pushing the audience to side with David before pulling an about face. Both David – and, presumably the audience – realize there’s more to life and the film than David’s foibles.
The humor is derived from moments of misunderstanding or amped up mania (the casino sequence is the best in terms of pure comedy) but it also helps that the joke is entirely on David and Linda. Lost in America could have easily been a road movie where they point and laugh at the everyday struggles of common-folk as they pass through their lives – kind of like why Borat has never really worked for me. Where the movie fails is its ultimate resolution. Everything is wrapped up fairly suddenly. It’s the appropriate punchline to be sure, but it feels like a bit of a cheat as a narrative device. The lesson learned as David and Linda accept that they’ve made a mistake and decide to return to the city way of life is to stay in one’s lane. That may not be Brooks’ intention, and obviously these two people aren’t representative of society in a larger sense, but it does speak to how flimsy the final 20 minutes of the film are after a tightly wound opening two thirds.
The release itself is a solid special edition, if not exactly one of the more jam-packed discs Criterion has put out. That said, the bits available are absolutely essential with an extended conversation between Brooks and Robert Weide (Woody Allen: A Documentary) that spans over much of Brooks career in comedy and film and how it all relates to Lost in America. There is also an accompanying essay by film critic Scott Tobias about how it fits in the pantheon of 1980s comedy and its commentary on baby boomers and Reaganism. Tobias has an intimate connection to the film – and Brooks’ filmography on the whole – and it shows, providing an added amount of insight to how the film plays in broadened contexts.
And the film also works in the basest sense. It’s funny, and like Rex Reed says in the opening radio show, I don’t need a room of people chuckling to remind me when to laugh. But it also doesn’t hurt to share the joy, either.
www.criterion.com/films/29022-lost-in-america
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August 2nd 2017
4:52am
Maybe she’s been so bustling propping up her better half that she hasn’t possessed the capacity to set aside the opportunity to truly consider the toll working in an austere office for a long time has really affected her. http://www.essayavenue.co.uk/