I Love America

Plot

Lisa, a 50-year-old filmmaker, leaves France to start a new life in Los Angeles. She stays with her gay friend Luka, who had moved to L.A. from France five years earlier and runs his own business, a drag queen bar. Immediately after her arrival, Lisa makes a brief return to Paris for the death of her mother. Back in L.A., she begins work on her new screenplay. After a meeting with a fortune teller, who tells her she is destined to lead a solitary life, Lisa embarks on a quest for sex without commitment and is guided by Luka, who sets up a dating-app account for her. After the first encounter ends badly, Lisa next meets John. Both appear to be into the relationship until John discovers from Lisa's passport that she is 50 years old when her profile on the app said she was younger (thanks to Luka's strategy for her when he set up her account). Eventually they reconnect when John invites her to meet him on her birthday, which he had discovered when he looked at her passport.

Parallel to and intertwined with Lisa's story is the story of Luka. He has unsuccessfully been seeking a more enduring relationship than his life of brief encounters, and by the end of the film he too connects with someone in a relationship that appears to hold promise.

Throughout the film, starting with the opening scene, are flashbacks to Lisa's childhood experiences of her parents (at ages four, eight, and twelve), offered as her reflections on her current issues and attitudes about love and relationships.

Cast

Sophie Marceau as Lisa

Djanis Bouzyani as Luka

Colin Woodell as John

Sophie Verbeeck as Lisa's mother

Jorge Ortiz as Lisa's father

Carlease Burke as Aurora, the fortune teller

Reviews

Many film critics offered reviews, some positive, some negative, and many somewhere in between:

Nicolas Rapold at The New York Times: "Marceau beams with unshakable good vibes, like a lion in the sun, though that makes her woes feel not so woeful."

Peter Bradshaw at the Guardian: "There’s no redeeming this unfunny LA-set comedy starring Sophie Marceau, about a divorced woman’s return to dating."

Kevin Maher at The Times: "the story of a middle-aged film-maker called Lisa who flees Paris for Los Angeles and a complicated romantic life (dating apps are involved) is compelling mainly for demonstrating that an actual human life could be hewn from so many hoary movie clichés."

Tomris Laffly with RogerEbert.com: "I Love America is hardly a life-changing rom-com. But it’s a good candidate for your next airplane watch."

Simon Abrams at TheWrap: "the formulaic plot and its many tacky platitudes could still be satisfying if you really want to root for good-looking people as they struggle to sell you some truly embarrassing material."

Alex Saveliev at Film Threat: "Opting for pleasant over challenging, and breezy over insightful, Azuelos seems unsure what exactly she’s trying to say, so she speaks as genially as she can, coasting on charm."

Jennifer Green at Common Sense Media: "Despite excellent actors and story material with plenty of potential, this French dramatic comedy doesn't succeed as a drama or as a comedy. The humor in I Love America is especially disappointing, considering how rich the possibilities were with a 50-year-old Parisian in Los Angeles on dates with strangers met through a dating app."

Roger Moore at Movie Nation: "I Love America makes a decent 50-something showcase for the almost-ageless Sophie Marceau and pretty much nothing else. It’s a dry, somewhat vapid 'French sophisticate in LA' dramedy about parenting, love, age and finding closure as the heroine of your own story."