American Dreamer (1984)
JoBeth Williams stars as suburban Ohio housewife and mother Cathy Palmer, who escapes her joyless marriage in her spare time by reading her favorite romantic thriller novels, all starring a Modesty Blaise-like globe-hopping female private detective, Rebecca Ryan. She loves them so much, she enters a Rebecca Ryan fan fiction writing contest in which the winner of the would-be authors scores an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, including seeing all the famous sights, as well as meeting the author of the novels herself, Margaret McMann. When her selfish hubby tells her he has no time for it, and she should just not go at all, Cathy decides she’s going to Paris alone if she must, leaving him and their two boys behind for the week.
A curious thing happens on the trip, as Cathy ends up taking a blow to the head after getting hit by a car while pursuing some purse thieves, and when she awakens in the hospital, she not only forgets she’s Cathy, but she thinks she’s the heroine of her novels, Rebecca Ryan herself. She begins her make-over to glamour and adventure, all the while imagining everyone and everything around her is part of a plot of one of the novels, including the leader of the French opposition party, whom she suspects is part of her mission to help protect. Meanwhile, she mistakes Englishman Alan McMann, Margaret’s son (played by Scottish actor, Tom Conti), as her partner-in-crime-solving, Dmitri, and the two get themselves into a heap of real trouble as she dives head-first into snooping around where she doesn’t belong without the skills or expertise to truly know what she’s doing.
After Sally Field ended up passing on the film once it went into limbo by its production house, JoBeth Williams would get her chance to shine in a lead role with American Dreamer, and one can’t say that she doesn’t give the part her all. It is a spirited performance, but might be a little out of her wheelhouse in terms of needing a wacky comedienne to truly own, especially as the writing isn’t fresh enough to make it work independently of the performance. It also doesn’t help that there is absolutely no romantic chemistry between her and co-star Tom Conti, who look like they’d rather do anything else but actually gaze at or kiss each other with anything resembling passion. Their repartee has some traction, but Conti, whose character is said to be some sort of playboy (he comes off more like a lonely mama’s boy), is no Cary Grant, especially as he is intentionally playing reserved and quite confused throughout.
Taking the director’s chair is Rick Rosenthal, whose primary claim to fame came as director of some fairly dark stuff: Halloween II and the Sean Penn reform-school drama, Bad Boys. Rosethal’s reputation, coming first from the world of acting, is one that values characters and performances more so than the mechanics of cinema. This would represent Rosenthal’s first foray into screwball romantic farce, and would greatly increase the scope of the action, and perhaps he bit off a bit more than he can chew, as the movie works best when dealing with smaller and more personal moments, such as Cathy getting slighted by her husband whose interests seem to always lie elsewhere, rather than the more grandiose set pieces meant to draw out guffaws or tension, neither of which are elicited with conviction. It also doesn’t help much that the fatuous plot of the story itself barely hangs together, and what little sense there is to follow is largely uninteresting to care one whit about on its own.
American Dreamer is one of those films that feels like it has all of the pieces necessary to make for a winning comedic adventure, but the chemistry just never quite comes together in a way that produces genuine laughs, thrills, chills or romance when it should. It has the air of being comical, and will produce a chuckle or two, but one gets the feeling that it works overtime trying to squeeze out those laughs that similar comedies can do with just providing the situations. Part of the reason why it may not have much fizzle is due to casting actors who aren’t natural comedians for all of the roles, unable to figure out how to make their respective scenes funny without playing things either broadly like William when in Rebecca Ryan mode, or by underplaying them like Conti through dry and deadpan contrast to the flashy flamboyance that Williams is delivering. The result is something likable, but not quite as inspired in delivery.
If there is an audience for the film, it may primarily lie with those who like made-for-television fare, to which this cinematically released film sure feels like it plays out as much of the time. As compared to the similarly premised, but vastly more charming and funny Romancing the Stone, which came out earlier in 1984, this feels like second-hand goods done far better the first time around. Audiences in 1984 also recognized it as such, as it was a bust at the box office, only taking in about half of its reported $10 million budget while in theaters. Thanks to a devaluation in French currency at the time, it allowed for more for the studio to work with in terms of funding the locale work necessary to make the shoot in the actual locations in Paris – the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Trimphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, etc. It has become a bit of a cult favorite for those who watched it in repeated cable showings, however, partially because it does play out like the aforementioned films made at the time for Lifetime, except with more budget for locales.
A film that’s as difficult to hate as it is easy to blindly recommend, American Dreamer is like a dreamer in itself, hoping that it has the stuff to live out its fantasies of becoming a hilarious, rip-roaring adventure, but in the end, whatever entertainment it had been meaning to inspire remains solely in the heads of those who sought to bring it to life on the big screen.
Qwipster’s rating: C+
MPAA Rated: PG for sensuality, violence, and some language (probably PG-13 today)
Running time: 105 min.
Cast: JoBeth Williams, Tom Conti, Giancarlo Giannini, James Staley, Coral Browne, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Huckleberry Fox
Director: Rick Rosenthal
Screenplay: David Greenwalt, Jim Kouf