''Lost in America'' is a 1985 American satirical

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Albert Brooks Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein ; July 22, 1947) is an American actor and filmmaker. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for 1987's '' Broadcast News'' and was widely praised for his performance as a ...

and co-written by Brooks with

Monica Johnson Monica Johnson (February 21, 1946 – November 1, 2010) was an American screenwriter whose film credits included ''Mother'', ''Lost in America'', '' Modern Romance'', '' Jekyll and Hyde... Together Again'' and '' The Muse''. Her television credi ...

. The film stars Brooks alongside

Julie Hagerty Julie Beth Hagerty (born June 15, 1955) is an American actress. She starred as Elaine in the films ''Airplane!'' (1980) and '' Airplane II: The Sequel'' (1982). Her other film roles include ''A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy'' (1982), ''Lost in Am ...

as a married couple who decide to quit their jobs and travel across America.

Plot

David and Linda Howard are typical 1980s

yuppies Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, dissatisfied with their

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

lifestyle. He works in an advertising agency and she for a department store, but after failing to receive an expected promotion and instead being asked to transfer to the firm's

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

office, David angrily insults his boss and is fired. David coaxes his wife to quit her job as well and seek a new adventure. The Howards decide to sell their house, liquidate their assets, drop out of society, "like in ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

''", and travel the country in a Winnebago

recreational vehicle A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer that includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include motorhomes, campervans, coaches, caravans (also known as travel trailers and camper ...

. They leave LA with US$100,000 but their plans change drastically when Linda loses all their savings playing

roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

at the

Desert Inn The Desert Inn, also known as the D.I., was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, which operated from April 24, 1950, to August 28, 2000. Designed by architect Hugh Taylor and interior design by Jac Lessman, it was the ...

Casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, where David desperately and unsuccessfully persuades a casino manager to give the money back as a publicity gimmick. With nowhere to go, the couple quarrels at

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...

, eventually arriving in small-town Safford,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. David unsuccessfully applies for a delivery job at a local pharmacy and resorts to an employment agency. After a counselor obnoxiously reminds him that he was fired from his high-paying job in advertising, David accepts the best position available — as a crossing guard, taunted by local schoolchildren. Linda, meanwhile, finds employment as the assistant manager at the local Der Wienerschnitzel, working under a person half her age. Only a few days after beginning their pursuit of the dream of dropping out of society, David and Linda are living in a

trailer park A trailer park,caravan park, mobile home park, mobile home community or manufactured home community is a temporary or permanent area for mobile homes and travel trailers. Advantages include low cost compared to other housing, and quick and eas ...

, nearly broke, and working

dead-end job A dead-end job is a job where there is little or no chance of career development and advancement into a better position. If an individual requires further education to progress within their firm that is difficult to obtain for any reason, this can ...

s where they are accountable to brats. They decide that it is better to return to their old lifestyle as soon as possible. They point the Winnebago toward New York, where David begs for his old job back. An end card reveals he is rehired with a substantial pay cut but better dental care.

Cast

as David Howard *

as Linda Howard *

Maggie Roswell Maggie Roswell is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer from Los Angeles, California. She is well known for her voice work on the Fox network's animated television series ''The Simpsons'', in which she has played recurring characters ...

as Patty *

Michael Greene Michael Harris Greene (November 4, 1933 – January 10, 2020) was an American actor who was active from the 1960s through the 1990s. Career Greene was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gladys () and Harry Greene. Early in his caree ...

as Paul Dunn *

Garry Marshall Garry Kent Marshall (November 13, 1934 – July 19, 2016) was an American filmmaker and actor. He started his career in the 1960s writing for ''The Lucy Show'' and ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' before he developed Neil Simon's 1965 play ''The Odd Co ...

as Casino Manager *

Donald Gibb Donald Richard Gibb (born August 4, 1954) is an American actor, best known for his roles as the hulking, dimwitted fraternity brother Ogre in several installments of the ''Revenge of the Nerds'' film series, as Kumite fighter Ray Jackson in '' B ...

as Ex-Convict * Charles Boswell as Highway Patrolman Brooks originally did not want to direct himself and had wanted

Bill Murray William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan delivery. He rose to fame on ''The National Lampoon Radio Hour'' (1973–1974) before becoming a national presence on ''Saturday Nigh ...

for the part of David Howard.

Reception and awards

''Lost In America'' received mostly positive reviews from critics and holds a 95% rating on review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 39 reviews. The site's consensus states: "A satire of the American fantasy of leaving it all behind, Lost in America features some of Albert Brooks' best, most consistent writing and cultural jabs." The film was a commercial success, though not a blockbuster. The film's script won the

National Society of Film Critics The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) is an American film critic organization. The organization is known for its highbrow tastes, and its annual awards are one of the most prestigious film critics awards in the United States. In January 2014, ...

award for Best Screenplay. Film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave it 4 out of 4 stars calling it observant and very funny. The film is #80 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies, and was listed at #84 on

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

's AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs in 2000.

Home media

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...

initially released the film on

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, ...

, VHS, and

Laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

in 1985 and reissued it twice on videotape, in 1991 and 1997. The film made its

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

debut on April 3, 2001, and was made available for streaming on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on July 1, 2016. Criterion released the

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

on July 25, 2017.

References

External links