Albert Brooks sent up the Me Generation with his savagely funny Lost In America
Film Lists Lost In America
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead bringing zombies to the Vegas strip, we’re bringing Vegas to Watch This.
Lost In America (1985)
Is there another American filmmaker who has satirized generational anxieties and vacillations as savagely as Albert Brooks? In Lost In America, his scathing comedy about a yuppie couple who decide to “drop out” of Reagan-era conformity to live the Easy Rider dream of the 1960s in a Winnebago, he gives us the classic Me Generation symptoms: entitlement, delusion, and the curdled false promise of economic stability at the expense of social liberation. Real life—not coincidentally, the title of Brooks’s directorial debut—is supposed to be out there, waiting to be discovered, away from bills, mortgages, and consumerism. Except, of course, it isn’t: The ’60s were just a movie that no one remembers right.
Even the idea of dropping out is self-deluding. David Howard (Brooks) hasn’t actually experienced a eureka moment about the discontent of the straight world. He’s been fired from his cushy ad agency job because he melted down after not getting an expected promotion. (Is there a once ubiquitous trope that seems more obsolete today than the Big Promotion?) It’s his wife, Linda (Julie Hagerty), who seems to be the truly dissatisfied party. In an early-midlife-crisis folie à deux, they liquidate their assets, move into an RV, and set off with a $100,000 “nest egg” (about $250,000 in today’s dollars) to find themselves.
They get only as far as Desert Inn in Las Vegas before the dream evaporates. In peak form—which is to say, in this film and in Modern Romance—Brooks is one of the best and most distinctive directors in American comedy, building a scene from long takes, wide shots, speech rhythms, and pitch-perfect deliveries from highly credible bit characters (among the best here is the director Garry Marshall’s turn as a seen-it-all casino manager). He even manages to find a way to skip the exciting part of a bad gambling streak: the early winnings. Only a small part of Lost In America is set in Las Vegas, but it manages to encapsulate both the film and the bleak Brooks sensibility, a slow crescendo that begins with disappointment at arrival and ends with the pathetic sight of David, in a bathrobe, trying to talk the casino into giving him back his life savings by pitching an ad campaign.
What makes Brooks’ comedy so caustically funny—and cover-your-eyes squirmy—is that the character really believes it. This slow burn is obviously the film’s highlight (or low point, depending on one’s point of view), but there are more excruciating attempts at self-discovery and affirmation to come. As it turns out, the Howards’ new mobile home is taking them to the only place where it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb: the trailer park. And the only enlightenment in store for these two is the realization that it’s better to be a have than a have-not. Beyond that, just as in Vegas, there’s only the desert.
Availability: Lost In America is currently streaming for free (with ads) on Tubi. It can also be rented or purchased digitally from Google Play, Apple, YouTube, Microsoft, DirecTV, and VUDU.
53 Comments
The Desert Inn has heart. The Desert Inn has heart. I’m just riffing here.
“That movie had Santy Clause. Santy Clause fixed everything. We don’t have Santy Clause!”
“Shumcks see Wayne Newton…”
“The Desert Inn… A Christmas place to be!”
“We get Santa Claus!”
The scene where Brooks attempts to convince Marshall to return their money is absolute comic genius:
Marshal and Brooks are both brilliant in this scene. “Those people won. You lost.”
“I like Wayne Newton.”
Watching the clip again, I’ve also noticed that my opinion of this scene has changed with age. When I first saw this film, maybe at age 15, I was rooting for Brooks’ character to get the money back. Now, I realize Marshal’s casino boss is being much more reasonable here.
They get only as far as Desert Inn in Las Vegas before the dream evaporates. In peak form—which is to say, in this film and in Modern RomanceReal Life might have something to say.
I miss Albert Brooks.
Me too.
Isn’t he still alive? Is he retired or something?
He’s still alive. He just hasn’t written or directed anything in over 15 years. He used to put a new movie out about every three to five years.
He wrote a novel about ten years ago entitled 2030. It was funny, although covered much the same material as to what happens to America when it ceases to be a superpower that has been covered before in books like Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.
He died the day I saw The Muse in the theater.
My parents love this movie and quoted it for a long time (the other Albert Brooks movie we owned was Defending Your Life, which I far preferred as a kid). It was only once I hit my 20s that I could rewatch it and discover how great it really was.
The ’60s were just a movie that no one remembers right.People always miss the real meaning of Easy Rider. Bill Lee got it right.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/99233/the-wrong-stuff-by-bill-spaceman-lee-with-richard-lally/9780307422491
They never did get to touch Indians.
The problem is that the film takes the easy route by getting their money out of the picture instantly, via gambling it. And the second they reach Vegas you know it’s coming. If it happened gradually over several months and they slowly realized it would take them less than they thought, it’d be more realistic. Or if it has to disappear RIGHT NOW, have one of them get into an injury. If you had $100,000 (“IN CASH”) you wouldn’t feel a need to gamble in the first place.
You might think it unrealistic… however, my brother just went through his $100k inheritance in less than 6 months—gambling. He got himself in such a position that he is much worse off than before the money. He attempted suicide when the money ran out, and he’s currently in a psych ward. True, I could see it coming more than the movie plays. I warned him numerous times he needed to seek treatment for the gambling before he got a dime. I was really praying, him getting the money, would give him the opportunity to not feel desperate that he needed to gamble. This is no dark comedy. This is fucking sad and infuriating.
There’re people who win tens of millions, but it just never matters, they’ll keep going til it’s all gone, and the casinos know it. They even use it as a draw, in a perverse way. Like it’s the manly thing to do.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_KarasKinda like Hard Eight, where they make it look cool to make a big stupid bet.
This may be the wrong place to ask – and I’m not asking you specifically, but more just I thought of this from your post – do gambling addicts feel drawn to gambling before they ever take part in it?Like, drug/alcohol addicts have to actually try the substance before they get hooked on it (even thought they may well know that they have a predisposition, if they know enough about their family history). Pyromanics would be enthralled the first time they see fire, however.But do gambling addicts just see or hear about wagering and think “Yes. That is for me, that is what I’m all about and I can’t wait to do it myself” or are they indifferent to it before they try it and it’s like a switch gets flipped?
I think both:
Some of us hear the siren’s call, of Something and we keep trying until we find it, and some us stumble into something and then it becomes The Something.
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And some of us, having all of this media around about addiction, can see Addiction, and recognize the symptoms in ourselves, and be on the lookout.
If the Twilight Zone is to be trusted, I think possessed slot machines may somehow be involved in converting the gambling-skeptical to gambling addicts.
I don’t have any firsthand knowledge. I would guess it develops like any other addiction.
Probably as many answers as there are types of addicts tbh. I’m an alcoholic, but I can gamble responsibly and have never felt the compulsion to continue using other drugs I’ve tried (to a point where it interferes with my life anyway). Other people have their own poison, and some people seem to latch on to whatever is available.
Tragic to hear. I’m not a fan of casinos but I am even more disgusted by government sponsored electronic gambling (video lottery terminals and alike) – too many ruined lives because of the promise of easy money when we all know that, in the end, The House always wins. I hope your brother benefits from the help he is getting.
They say comedy is just tragedy plus time. My mom died of suicide 17 years ago, so the laughs should be rolling in any day now.
So, what you’re saying is, Movies are not Life. Right? Cuz we didn’t know that before.
I’m trying to remember a movie where a couple says something like:“Heads we go home. Tails we bet everything we have left.”When it comes up heads, and they look at each other and say:“Two out of three?”And their waitress rolls her eyes.Was that Indecent Proposal? My googles are unsuccessful.
Nah. The money is about what happens next. Besides, it’s a comedy.
whats it like to hate fun and never enjoy anything?
“In Lost In America, his scathing comedy about a yuppie couple who decide to “drop out” of Reagan-era conformity to live the Easy Rider dream of the 1960s in a Winnebago, he gives us the classic Me Generation symptoms: entitlement, delusion, and the curdled false promise of economic stability at the expense of social liberation. Real life—not coincidentally, the title of Brooks’s directorial debut—is supposed to be out there, waiting to be discovered, away from bills, mortgages, and consumerism. Except, of course, it isn’t: The ’60s were just a movie that no one remembers right.”That’s what I like about Albert Brooks: unlike some Boomers, he doesn’t idolize or mythologize the 1960s and the Boomers. I mean, sure, they protested the Vietnam War, marched for civil rights, and gave us the Sexual Revolution. But, they also got Nixon and Reagan elected President.
Yea…no. They gave us Jimmy Carter and AIDS. That was their politics and their sexual revolution. And their protestation of the VietWar was as unsuccessful as a Bryant Park sit-in. Woodstock didn’t end anything but good taste much less a war. And Abby Hoffman’s beard and pubes didn’t solve anything. Jane Fonda even repented.
Jimmy Carter and AIDS are comparable?
That’s like comparing the Holocaust to having to wear a mask. Who would be so insane enough to make such a connection?
Of course part of the sexual revolution that didn’t quite age so well is the notion that asking anyone you fancy for sexual favors was appropriate, even if you weren’t actually in a romantic relationship with them.
my favorite is the boomer belief they protested vietnam.
a ‘1967 Harris poll asked the American public how the war affected their family, job or financial life. The majority of respondents, 55%, said that it had had no effect on their lives. Of the 45% who indicated the war had affected their lives, 32% listed inflation as the most important factor, while 25% listed casualties inflicted’
even the minority of the population that noticed were more concerned with their bank account then any moral or political issues
You can be bothered by war, even if it doesn’t directly affect your life. Also, Baby Boomers who were children in 1967 (which were a lot of them) probably weren’t being polled about the war.
No one born after 1947 was old enough to vote for Nixon in 1968 and no one born after 1954 was old enough to have ever voted for Nixon. Your theory that he was the fault of Baby Boomers makes no sense.
Nixon ran on a campaign to restore law and order to the nation’s cities, which appealed to many voters angry with the hundreds of violent riots that had taken place across the country in the previous few years. In 1968, there were riots over MLK’s death and turmoil at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was using the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, hippies, and the culture wars as fearmongering among older, white voters, especially in the South. He may not have gotten their votes, but he used Boomers to get votes, and it worked.
Obligatory Alternate Picks For This Week’s Theme Post:Casino—Obligatory Obvious Pick.Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas—the other Obligatory Obvious Pick.Ocean’s 11 (2001) and 13—Soderbergh’s remake is a classic. As for the Vegas-set sequel, I just found it to be a lot of fun.Vegas Vacation—Not the best Vacation movie, but it has its charms. Showgirls—Can’t hate a movie with the line “Man, everybody got AIDS and shit!”One From The Heart–Francis Ford Coppola’s musical bomb which makes great use of Vegas’s neon lights.
you don’t get to use the words nest or egg!
Followed by a suggestion she write “I lost our nest egg” 500 times on the sidewalk and a subsequent demand she say it out loud immediately after.
Mother will always be my favorite Albert Brooks movie. And then there is the scene (forget which movie) where he suspects he’s just been drugged and he sadly pleads, as only Albert Brooks could, ‘oh, please don’t rape me.’
Thank you for recommending this. I found it both really funny and terrifyingly relatable on many different levels. (Well, other than making $80,000 a year—that’s just crazy pipe dreams for an advanced humanities degree-holding Millennial like me.)
After revisiting Midnight Run this past week after Charles Grodin’s passing (hey! Another Vegas movie!), I went to IMDB to confirm that the studio wanted Cher for his role (they did). But part of the fun of going through the “trivia” section was discovering who else was being considered for it – the likes of Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, and (God help us) Chevy Chase. The only suggestion that made sense – and might have worked – was Albert Brooks. I can actually picture it (but it probably wouldn’t have been as perfect without Grodin).
Having never seen this movie, I mistook Julie Hagerty in the header image for Carrie Fisher!
Is there a once ubiquitous trope that seems more obsolete today than the Big Promotion?Er, what? Are you implying modern workplaces are now egalitarian places where there is no hierarchy of command to be promoted in? I seriously don’t get where this is coming from.
Great movie.
Albert Brooks never looks like he’s acting in most of his films. You believe he’s a real person. So you’re more incline to follow him on his journey down a rabbit hole of misery. All the while rooting for him to succeed. It’s Curb your Enthusiasm before there was a Curb your Enthusiasm.