I Love America

Lisa Azuelos knows how to have an impact on French screens; just see the reputation that her film, "LOL" (2008), enjoys. From that time, though, none of her movies has acquired such an enviable status. "I love America", her latest work, will most probably be the last one to do so.

With this film, released on Amazon Prime - a platform that wants to compete with Netflix, but does so unsuccessfully - Azuelos has delved into her personal life, presenting us a fictionalised version of her childhood, giving emphasis on her relationship with her mother, the famous singer Marie Laforêt. The film changes between flashbacks set in Azuelos's childhood and teenage years during the 70's and 80's, and a story set in the present, where the now adult Lisa decides to go to America, in order to follow the American dream, and, if lucky, find love too.

Like Azuelos herself, the synonymous character (played by frequent collaborator Sophie Marceau), is a film director. From what one sees in the film she is already welthy enough so as not to need to work for a single day of her life, and spends her days talking with her gay friend, Lukas, (Djanis Bouzyani) about her failed personal life. He is certainly a real friend, for he puts up with her often just tiring rants about not finding love. He is also searching for the perfect partner, and if, Lisa does it through dating sites - on his advice - he finds the desired one through an incident that makes their meeting border on the comical.

Despite the two heroes'often illogical behaviour, they are served well by the cast, and become - at least, partly - palatable. The problem with this film is its indecisiveness, since its character changes from the serious to the comical too quickly and abruptly.

Lisa narrates the story herself, and the aforementioned flashbacks serve as a way to cope with her past. Everything reminds her of her mother; the lipstick that a woman in a nightclub wears, the TV, her partner's questions about her childhood. While the film presents Lisa's trip to America as the beginning of a new life, it is actually a way for the heroine to ignore her traumatic past, that still haunts her. She doesn't want to deal with it. She prefers talking about sex or dating instead of sitting down and fighting her demons. The flashbacks show this state of character to the viewers, since they are the only truly moving parts of this film, thanks, in part, to the performances of the child actors interpreting the young Lisa.

Of course, this serious tone doesn't hold for long. As soon as she arrives to America, Lisa engages in what is simply called a dream life, having a good time in clubs, touring Los Angeles while making movie references - she imagines herself being Nathalie Wood in "Rebel without a cause", in one sequence - and going to yoga classes. John , her partner, - possibly the best character of the movie - found - of course - in a dating site, is kind, loving and understanding. Still, she isn't happy in the inside, exactly because of her not pondering her past. She wants to forget, but can't.

Aside from the film's dual nature as a comedy and a - mild - drama, the other issue with it is Azuelos's portrayal of the gay friend. Lukas is only there for laughs. While not as hyperbolic as other gay heroes, he is still, hypersensitive, irritable, with a sense of fashion that makes everyone else look like models. Whilst Lisa's attempts at finding love are presented as a personal journey, Lukas's ones bring more laughs than feeling, and the last sequence, where he kisses his partner, feels more forced than spontaneous.

Despite mentioning above that Sophie Marceau is a frequent collaborator of Lisa Azuelos, her choice for the role was extremely ironic. She had mentioned in an interview that she thinks that the most important cultural element of America is the jeans, and generally expressed her contempt for this culture. Her playing a heroine obsessed with that same culture is truly antithetic. Her performance, whilst very convincing, made for an a heroine that could be described as partly annoying at best, selfish at worst. She only cares for her own personal life, and doesn't show any of her friend's kindness, so their friendship seems to have been a product of luck.

It is disappointing to see the so-called "Favourite actress of the French" play in such a film, that, while not completely bad, has none of the qualities of her most famous works. The lack of success that she enjoys these last years shows, to my mind, this sense of disappointment that the French feel for their former teenage idol. For many, seeing the actress who had, forty years ago, represented the most relatable of people , end up playing the most unidentifiable of heroines, was maybe too sad. Even in "LOL", her character of the concerned mother had a universality not seen in her latest features. I don't know what reputation "I love America" will enjoy in forty years, but the one of the cult film is surely not the answer.

"I love America" - a film that wants to be something it can't, whose cast desires to cement an identity that maybe doesn't suit them, with a director that has done better in the past. A film of which one of the few redeeming qualities is its relentless optimism, that makes its mediocrity seem less than it is.

The kind of optimism only present in America.

Seemingly ageless French icon Sophie Marceau plays a woman who after raising two daughters looks for a fresh start in the US. As she's a movie director in her home country she chooses LA and Hollywood as her destination. Lisa also has a close friend there.

She wants to experience the places she's seen in her favorite movies and maybe relive some of the stories portrayed there.

You may have noticed by now that this is a semi-autobiographical movie depicting the life of the director of this very film.

So you won't be surprised that it's not just the typical Hollywood romcom made after a checklist from the studio. Indeed it seems to be combining the French way of making movies with some of the Hollywood standards.

Yes, we have some typical ingredients like the supportive gay friend and the obnoxious dates meant to make us cringe.

Yet almost at the beginning we get a u-turn where Lisa has to literally revisit her deeply troubled relationship with her parents. So we witness her reluctantly dealing with her childhood trauma both in the current time frame and in flashbacks.

This can be rather depressing, sad and triggering at times but when we wade through the difficult emotions with our protagonist we can also enjoy the shiny and (not always) happy encounters throughout the movie.

The somber undertone makes this movie less of a comedy. It's rather a fresh and uninhibited look at modern relationships. So if you're in it just for cheap laughs you might be disappointed.

We have some of the bizarre downsides of (online) dating here but they are shown in a realistic way so they are not really laughable due to their somewhat ridiculous nature. These are rather WTF moments.

Also if you don't like gay people being shown cross-dressing and kissing you will probably hate it.

I blame homophobia for the surprisingly low reviews. Apparently some "American patriots" were drawn in by the title just to realize that it is the open minded America people from outside the US love. If you hate truly American values like freedom of expression don't watch this.

If you are a healthy heterosexual man (like I am) - sorry for the outing - you may want to watch the movie just to see the lead's breasts! They are incredible. How on earth do they look so beautiful at that age without looking fake at all? I hope this is not just about CGI special effects.

Given that I Love America is just an Amazon Prime production and rather low budget compared to full-fledged Hollywood movies I was pleasantly surprised by the depth, uplifting message and overall enthusiasm of this little film.

The main drawback is that it's basically two films at once, one about dealing with childhood trauma and one about navigating the often strange realm of dating and (the lack of) relationships these days.

I had the impression that the movie was jumping back and forth all the time.

Each time you relaxed a bit there was another blast from the past. So I can't give "I Love America" a 9 or 10 like the "one time reviewers" reviews which look like mostly written by friends and team members.

I Love America is clearly better than your stereotypical Hollywood romcoms. It combines the best of two worlds, French filmmaking and tried out Hollywood concepts yet it could be more polished and have benefitted from a bigger budget IMHO. The editing and overall cinematography have suffered from this apparent lack of funds.

I hope to see more (American movies) of Sophie Marceau and writer-director Lisa Azuelos. This is indeed a fresh start.

Last but not least Sophie plays a woman of 50 who poses as 43 while in reality being 57 at time of filmmaking. I had to look that up to make sure. Why? She looks incredible. I should add "older women" to my online dating settings haha.

I only enjoyed watching Sophie Marceau in this movie. Otherwise the story is really boring, the role of the gay best friend is a caricature, and the actor doesn't play well. The voice over and the constant flashbacks become annoying and too repetitive. The story doesn't feel real, we don't see anything about her career as a movie director in LA. People are rich but don't work. I was just hoping for a plot twist all along the movie, but nothing ever happened.

This is an exemplary film, which should be shown in film schools. It's a breviary of everything you shouldn't do. Impressive. The film lacks artistic direction. Which is normally the director's job (in France), or the producer's (in the USA).

The breviary is exemplary. There is a useless, and above all ridiculous, voice-over (it sounds like a text generated by a robot on the internet) which translates the director's inability to tell her story through the mise en scène. The film contains multiple shots, even entire scenes, that are unnecessary and could be removed. There are useless 20 minutes. There is a real lack of discernment. No one asked themselves the question of the length of this pensum?

Finally, to top it all off, the script is a pile of hackneyed clichés (not to be confused with stereotypes, which are useful for the drama), strung together like pearls and which seem to be thought of as powerful revelations... One of the ridiculous ones is the homosexual friend, very "crazy" of course and who owns a box of transvestites or similar: since 1978 (La Cage Aux Folles, Édouard Molinaro) the representation of homosexuality has come out of these chromos... The French are noisy. The runnings gags are at least out of a think tank. The cab drivers want to be actors. We have the shot on the mount Lee, the palm trees... The film is based on a dramaturgy and a scenario free of any element related to reality: the film contains no sociological, societal, social or economic element that links it to a reality. Impressive. They are wealthy and do not work. While the characters seem to suffer (we don't care).

It would seem that there is an alibi of truth, in the sense that there is inspiration from a true story. But veracity is no guarantee of drama.

Netflix has nothing to fear from Prime Video with a film like this. Prime Video needs to be careful and not fund films that are permanently weak, i.e. Dumb.

For those of us who are not fluent in French Language, the availability of subtitles would have been greatly appreciated. Otherwise, with half of the movie in French, it's pointless to even attempt to watch this.