We got sent a screener recently for American Dreamer, which stars Peter Dinklage and Shirley MacLaine. I can’t say I was all that keen, but I gave it a fair shot.
To my pleasant surprise, it was a good movie. The movie is indie and worth watching.
American Dreamer stars Dinklage, MacLaine, Kimberly Quinn, Danny Pudi, Matt Dillon, Danny Glover, Michelle Mylett and Peter Kelamis. Paul Dektor directs, with Theodore Melfi and Christopher Wehner writing. Relatively new names to me, but Melfi is known for Hidden Figures.
The Story
The story of American Dreamer isn’t all that new, but it was engaging.
American Dreamer is the story of Phil Loder, a professor of economics, whose dream of owning a home is tragically out of reach until a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes his way when a widow offers Phil her sprawling estate for pennies.
Wow, it’s basically about me and my dreams. Although, I’m British, so I dream mostly about straight teeth, fish ‘n’ chips and football.
Phil (Dinklage) is a professor of economics and all he wants out of life is a house. He only wants a humble home, with 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a tennis court and a medium size swimming pool.
Like most dreamers, his dreams are dreams and he wants to believe it will happen, but deep down, he knows it won’t.
He finds a property that’s a steal. It’s worth $5 million, but there is a downpayment of $240,000. He just needs to live there until the owner dies and he will inherit the house. What could go wrong?
The elderly lady that owns the house, Astrid (MacLaine) seems to be on her last legs, but won’t push off this mortal coil. She also has a big family, who Phil worries will contest the agreement they have.
I’m not going to break down the rest of the story. Sure, it’s a little predictable, but this kind of movie isn’t about the story, it’s about the cast.
The Cast
I’m going to say this, but I’m not a huge fan of Dinklage. Hmis rant about dwarves playing dwarves in movies irked me.
However, credit where credit is due, the guy is a great actor. You do end up feeling sorry for Phil. He wants more out of life but just doesn’t know how to get it, like most of us.
His relationship with Astrid is interesting and entertaining. I mean, you can’t go wrong with MacLaine, pretty sure we could use the words ‘screen legend’ with her. Her, odd-ball, Astrid is very funny but loveable.
There are more characters that Phil interacts with and they all help the story along. When Astrid’s daughter, Maggie (Quinn), starts to contest the agreement, as you would expect, it is interesting.
It was nice to see Glover as well. He plays a private eye who is supposed to dig up information on Maggie. It ends up funny, weird, but funny.
Overall
American Dreamer was one of those movies that popped out of nowhere for me. As I said at the outset, I wasn’t all that bothered, but I’ll admit when I’m wrong and it was funny, heart-warming and made me laugh.
It’s described as a dark comedy and I completely agree with this. There are some moments of slapstick and I did laugh. I say slapstick, to me that means no one gets hurt, but here I’m pretty sure one of the characters suffers brain damage, but it wasn’t me, so it’s funny.
It might not be our regular type of movie, but I would give American Dreamer a chance. It’s entertaining, Dinklage is funny and heartfelt and it’s a feel-good movie. I didn’t cry at the end, but I should have done if I wasn’t such a hardened monster with a black heart. It’s a good date movie as well, something for the both of you.
American Dreamer will be streaming on the 17th of March and it’s worth seeing. I’m giving it a solid 3.5 out of 5.
