Lost In America

Lost In America is, I think, Albert Books' best film. Released in 1985, it is certainly his funniest, with one of his typical over-the-top performances that, while creating an obnoxious character,, he's undeniably humorous.

Brooks plays an advertising executive who is on the cusp of a promotion. He and his wife, Julie Hagerty, have sold their house and purchased another, more expensive one. He is shopping for a Mercedes. But he doesn't get the promotion he though he would, and gets fired after a tirade. He urges Hagerty to quit her job, and they liquidate everything, buy a motor home, and decide to drop out of society and travel the county, modeling themselves on the film Easy Rider. One of the biggest laughs in the film is when the song "Born To Be Wild" is on the soundtrack to the visual of a Winnebago driving down the road.

Their first stop is Las Vegas, where they will renew their vows. This is a big mistake, as Hagerty, a compulsive gambler, loses all their money, which Brooks calls their "nest egg." After a hilarious scene in which Brooks tries to get his money back from casino manager Garry Marshall (he pitches an ad campaign that the Desert Inn can be known as the casino with heart) the couple have $802 dollars left. They land in a small Arizona town, where they have to get menial jobs.

There are a few plot holes in the story--Brooks doesn't mention collecting unemployment, and if he's such a hot shot in the advertising world he could have certainly got another job quickly. But this would have denied the point of the film, which is to show how the American upper-middle-class, especially in the Reagan years, was incapable of dropping out of society. For Brooks and Hagerty, it means an RV with a microwave with a browning element. In contrast to the expanding poverty class, these two are spoiled children, unable to abandon their comfort zones.

I saw this film upon its release and I remember that when I was coming out, a recognizable group of people were coming in. It was a few of the members of the then cast of Saturday Night Live (Brooks once made short films for that show). They were Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, and Mary Gross. I've always wondered if they liked the movie.