Peter Dinklage can play a likeable curmudgeon in his sleep; unfortunately, American Dreamer doesn’t ask him to do much more than that.
★★★☆☆
American Dreamer, written by Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures) and directed by Paul Dektor, tells the story of Phil Loader (Dinklage), a twice-divorced, un-tenured economics professor. Phil dreams of home ownership and spends his days attending viewings for houses he can’t afford, much to the chagrin of his realtor frenemy Dell (Matt Dillon). Everything changes when he sees the deal of a lifetime—a personal ad offering a $5 million waterfront property for just $240,000.The only catch is he’ll have to live in an apartment on the property and allow the current owner, the eccentric widowed Astrid Finnelli (Shirley MacLaine), to remain in the main house until the end of her life.
Thinking he’s struck gold, Phil cashes in his pension, sells his car (and most of his furniture) and moves in. Of course, things quickly go south. Astrid is far spryer than she first appears. She also has several kids, including Maggie (Kim Quinn), a lawyer, who has no intention of letting the deal go ahead, putting Phil’s investment at risk. To top it all off, Phil’s new apartment is also full of comedy slapstick home disasters, leaving him to duct tape up his wounds as his life begins to spin completely out of control.
American Dreamer claims to be based on a true story, by which it means loosely based on an idea from an episode of NPR’s This American Life, so this is an almost entirely original piece. The script itself is uneven at times, and there are some moments and key character motivations that don’t quite land. Thematically, the film is playing with some interesting material. American Dreamer comes at a time when home ownership and what the middle class can hope to achieve is shrinking. There’s a certain grim truth to Phil, who goes to work every day and buys his $1 vending machine sandwich, disenchanted with the fact that if he scrimps and saves, he could end up with a 1-bedroom starter apartment. It’s a shame this isn’t a theme the film explores more—what is an average joe entitled to? The mini-mansions that Phil covets seem like a sign of his hubris, but is he just chasing the American dream? Similarly, as Phil’s unlikely affection towards Astrid grows, it feels like we’re beginning to touch on the brutality of the inherited wealth system. Phil isn’t Astrid’s next of kin, but he’s experiencing the same morbid situation facing many in the current generation, where the best chance of owning a home is to wait for a loved one to die.
The best aspects of the film by far are the performances of Dinklage and McClaine. Just as Dinklage is no stranger to playing morose men you can’t help but root for, Shirley McClaine is in her element, making the most of her acerbic wit. Astrid is hard as nails and profoundly unimpressed with her new lodger, making her and Dinklage a delight to watch together. It’s unfortunate that the film doesn’t lean into this dynamic more, with Phil and Astrid spending surprisingly little time together. For some reason Astrid is kept at arm’s length by the film, off screen for strangely long periods.
Instead, American Dreamer is stuffed with unnecessary side plots, some of which are fun—if out of place, such as Danny Glover’s legally blind PI whose only talent seems to be snapping people in flagrante. Other plots are strangely misogynistic. Phil constantly imagines himself in an oddly regressive scenario where he has a modelesque wife to cater to his every whim alongside, of course, her twin sister. Isolated, this could be taken as another demonstration of Phil’s flaws and hubris, but this feels unclear when most of the women in the movie are just as thinly written. There’s not a woman in the film who doesn’t want to sleep with Phil. Peter Dinklage has charisma, of course, but it’s unclear why women are quite so desperate to jump into bed with this sad sack.
Graduate student Clare (Michelle Mylett), is the very worst of them, so poorly written it seems like the other shoe is going to drop that this student is playing a cruel prank on her professor. At one point she actually recites all the reasons why Phil isn’t in the wrong for sleeping with her (she’s a graduate student not an undergrad, she’s thirty, they’re consenting adults). But no, it turns out the other shoe is an extremely regressive student-feels-spurned-and-tries-to-ruin-teachers-career plot. While these tangents add to the general spiral of an entitled man suffering indignity after indignity, there would be better written ways to show what a mess Phil’s life has become. Unfortunately, the film simply isn’t up to the task.
Sometimes funny, sometimes emotional, but often flawed, American Dreamer is ultimately carried by Dinklage. Always a charismatic performer, he trudges through the film a frustrated man, held together by his increasingly unlikely dreams and some definitely not medical-grade duct tape. Phil Loader is a difficult man to like, who only occasionally shows glimpses of his humanity, but Dinklage makes him a pleasure to watch the whole way through.
The Verdict
American Dreamer is an uneven dramedy, which doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. However, it’s anchored by the always excellent Peter Dinklage and Shirley McClaine doing what they do best.
Words by Louise Weaver
American Dreamer will be available on Digital Download from 17th March
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