American Dreamer

Originally published on social media on May 24th, 2022

I’m curious, has anyone ever heard of this film? How about seen it?

Me either, until this month. Grandma had an eye for hidden gems of all kinds, and this film is fantastic. It has everything: adventure, thrills, comedy, romance, and intelligence.

Here’s my synopsis: 80’s housewife and mom loves romantic adventure novels, and enters a writing contest where she has to write a “Rebecca Ryan” story in the style of the author. She wins and her prize is an all inclusive trip to Paris. When she gets into an accident while on her trip, she loses her memory and takes on the identity of her favorite book character Rebecca Ryan.

Romancing the Stone and this film came out the same year (1984) and are very similar to each other! One took the cake and not the other, and I think for one reason: casting. Romancing the Stone has the Hollywood legend Michael Douglas as well as Danny De Vito. American Dreamer on the other hand has a bunch of faces you might recognize from other films, but no legends. That’s actually one of the things I like about this film though: it’s unrealistic in plot but realistic in casting. All of the actors contributed a relatability to their characters that remind us of either ourselves or someone we’ve known before. Besides, nowadays, I can’t help but love it when movies portray two normal people (rather than overly gorgeous people) falling in love.

Side note: One happy thing I learned from my mom was that Grandma used to think she looked like the main character, and the thought of it made her glow with joy!

The script of this film is absolutely brilliant and the way the story comes together is really enjoyable. The soundtrack does a nice job of setting the tone for this story, and the film in general has really good lighting and color scheme. People say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but I say you can judge a film by it’s lighting. Lighting establishes tone and tells you everything.