Roger Ebert's Four-Star Reviews 1967-2007 by Roger Ebert

Author:Roger Ebert
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Film
ISBN: 0740771795
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 2008-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Lost in America

R, 90 M., 1985

Albert Brooks (David Howard), Julie Hagerty (Linda Howard), Garry K. Marshall (Casino Boss), Art Frankel (Job Counselor). Directed by Albert Brooks and produced by Marty Katz. Screenplay by Brooks and Monica Johnson.

Every time I see a Winnebago motor home, I have the same fantasy as the hero of Lost in America. In my dream, I quit my job, sell everything I own, buy the Winnebago, and hit the open road. Where do I go? Look for me in the weather reports. I’ll be parked by the side of a mountain stream, listening to Mozart on compact discs. All I’ll need is a wok and a paperback.

In Lost in America, Albert Brooks plays an advertising executive in his thirties who realizes that dream. He leaves his job, talks his wife into quitting hers, and they point their Winnebago down that long, lonesome highway. This is not, however, a remake of The Long, Long Trailer. Brooks puts a different spin on things. For example, when movie characters leave their jobs, it’s usually because they’ve been fired, they’ve decided to take an ethical stand, or the company has gone broke. Only in a movie by Brooks would the hero quit to protest a “lateral transfer” to New York. There’s something intrinsically comic about that: He’s taking a stand, all right, but it’s a narcissistic one. He’s quitting because he wants to stay in Los Angeles, he thinks he deserves to be named vice president, and he doesn’t like the traffic in New York.

Lost in America is being called a yuppie comedy, but it’s really about the much more universal subjects of greed, hedonism, and panic. What makes it so funny is how much we can identify with it. Brooks plays a character who is making a lot of money, but not enough; who lives in a big house, but is outgrowing it; who drives an expensive car, but not a Mercedes-Benz; who is a top executive, but not a vice president. In short, he is a desperate man, trapped by his own expectations.

On the morning of his last day at work, he puts everything on hold while he has a long, luxurious telephone conversation with a Mercedes dealer. Brooks has great telephone scenes in all of his movies, but this one perfectly captures the nuances of consumerism. He asks how much the car will cost—including everything. Dealer prep, license, sticker, add-ons, extras, everything. The dealer names a price.

“That’s everything?” Brooks asks.

“Except leather,” the dealer says.

“For what I’m paying, I don’t get leather?” Brooks asks, aghast.

“You get Mercedes leather.”

“Mercedes leather? What’s that?”

“Thick vinyl.”

This is the kind of world Brooks is up against. A few minutes later, he’s called into the boss’s office and told that he will not get the promotion he thinks he deserves. Instead, he’s going to New York to handle the Ford account. Brooks quits, and a few scenes later, he and his wife (Julie Hagerty) are tooling the big Winnebago into Las Vegas. They have enough money, he conservatively estimates, to stay on the road for the rest of their lives.

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