I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Expected more

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Lost in America shows that Albert Brooks is a unique individual, who can tell a realistic story with dialogue and structure that are just as quirky as his character, David Howard. We start with what is clearly an unhappy couple having a tense discussion about how their life will play out in the next few days. David will get a promotion, the two of them will move to a new house, and everything will be fine. It is when David does not get the promotion he expects that everything changes, and the couple has to learn to live spontaneously.Wait though, because this can't just happen – the characters have to learn/make mistakes in order to change their outlook on life. David is still very methodical, planning to use a specific amount of money for one thing and carefully spend the rest on luxuries after the two are remarried. Unfortunately, the film resides to making a dumb character out of his wife Linda, who loses all of their money (except $820) on an entire night of playing roulette. Because God forbid we have a thoughtful female for the protagonist's wife in this film about finding the self.To me, the pacing of this film seems a little off – it is quick and funny at some parts, but these parts are cut between some scenes that are overly long with few cuts and tons of dialogue to preach the message of the film to the viewer, the message being when times are tough it is important not to lose the sense of self.The second half of the film is not as predictable as the first half, particularly the delightful turn at the conclusion of the film. With the tone of the film set, I knew this film would have a happy ending, but what I was expecting did not involve David getting his previous job back, because it kind of goes against the themes presented in the middle of the film. I enjoyed the nice surprise though, and things were clear to me when David asked if he should "eat s***" in New York – it made the scene where he examines a dream car passing by a lot more relevant than I had taken that scene to be. While most of the film force feeds the importance of living life by your own terms (especially with too many references to Easy Rider) David getting his "executive" job back at the end shows that, as I have read somewhere before, financial stability can equal emotional stability at times.

Didn't see it when it first came out in the 80's, but was interested when shown on TCM a couple of nights back, thinking I had missed something not following Brook's career closer, since the little I had seen of him had shown quite an intelligent comedian. And being a sucker to abandon-modern-life-go-back-to-simpler-way-of-life stories, was actually quite excited about the premise, but then the couple mentions going to Las Vegas and I thought: No, it can't be, it would kill the story right there. Guess what! It was! What a wasted opportunity for adventure and to explore America a la Easy Rider...I can't believe this is in AFI's top 100 comedies...Also I can see now why Brooks never developed much of a career.

'Lost in America' is a largely overlooked comedic gem of a movie, directed by and starring the intermittently brilliant comedian Albert Brooks. It's probably his best film, the most successful in terms of sustained humor. Others, like 'Defending Your Life' and 'The Muse' fall flat for long stretches and Brooks' neurotic persona starts to grate. But when he's good, he's very good, and there are some gaspingly hilarious moments in 'Lost in America.' I wouldn't mind being Albert Brooks. Without ever having a huge commercial success, he has been able to produce films regularly (while appearing in others) for the last thirty years. He's sort of a poor man's Woody Allen, but frankly I prefer Brooks and find his comic style much more palatable. 'Lost in America' finds David Howard (Brooks) expecting a big promotion at the ad agency where he works. More than expecting it, he is banking on it. He and his wife Linda (Julie Hagerty) have sold their house and bought a new one, so certain are they of this impending move up and increase in salary. David's friends and co-workers have all told him he's a shoo-in for the job. Yet worry nags at him. He's like a little kid who has convinced himself he's going to get a pony for Christmas but deep down knows there's no way. The big day arrives and when the dust has settled, David's worst fears have come true. In fact, worse than his worst fears, because before that dust settles, more has happened than he could have conceived that morning while he was rehearsing his 'acceptance speech.' This is the funniest scene in the film, a classic little study of human nature when everything that can possibly go wrong does. It's not slapstick; it's just a three-way conversation between David, his boss, and a bald man from New York. Before his boss even has a chance to really say anything, David launches into his thank you's and what a great day it is and how he is going to practically live at the agency from now on, giving the new job his all. That's great, his boss says, except you're not being promoted, you're going to New York to work on a new account (Ford) as Brad's (the bald man) assistant. Nothing in David's repertoire of responses is adequate to reply to this; part of his overcoming the nagging worry was to totally dismiss the possibility of this happening. So he loses it, completely. He rips into his boss, into Brad, into Brad's impromptu idea for a jingle ("this little Town Car, will drive you away" to the tune of 'New York, New York'), into his wasted years at the agency, into his boss's hairpiece, into New York itself ("if you think it's so great, why don't YOU go to New York?" he shouts). By the end of all this, which has taken less than fifteen minutes, he not only doesn't have the promotion, he's been fired. All of which is just the set-up for the rest of the film. A super-hyped-up David dashes to Linda's office and breathlessly tells her what happened, desperately trying to put the best spin on things. He decides on the spur of the moment that they should sell everything they own and drop out of society, "like they did in 'Easy Rider.'" One of the ideas he spews out has to do with uninhibited sex (I think) and concludes with the inspired thought that "there are some people you f*** in front of and some people you don't. We'll FIND THE ONES... and then we'll spend the rest of our lives f****** in front of them!" Linda tries to calm him down before he hyperventilates but soon he is rushing off to price motorhomes. From there, they head off across America in a Winnebago, to "touch Indians" among other things, but the trek turns out to be an abbreviated one as they only make it as far as Arizona, after Linda gambles away all their money in Las Vegas. There are other funny moments which inevitably seem a bit anti-climactic after the high-intensity rush of laughter induced by the above-mentioned two scenes. Still, it is a well-paced comedy that finds Brooks at a peak, consistently coming up with funny lines and situations. Many of the ideas hit very close to home with young urban professionals, if they are self-observant enough to notice. Not too many films are really 'laugh out loud' funny, but 'Lost in America' is one of them.

This movie is mildly entertaining and faintly amusing; but could of been a lot better. The lead actor also directs and most of the scenes in the film go on too long and are far too self-indulgent and are not very funny.The story is: A company executive thinks he will get promoted but does not and in a huff decides to leave his well paid job and take his wife and to do an "Easy Rider" across America in a trailer.Our executive is not the type to do that kind of thing being basically a greedy self centred person, and he soon discovers the errors of his ways, but the film ending is vague and unsatisfactory. I ask rhetorically: what is it with these movie people who try to tell the rest of us how to behave when in reality unlike what is portrayed in this film and with the type of individuals involved they would never ever do what is depicted in the story, but rather be falling over themselves to try to make another buck?I think my 4/10 is generous!