Americana Review
Americana (2023) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Tony Tost and starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Eric Dane, Gavin Maddox Bergman, Joe Adler, Zahn McClarnon, Derek Hinkey, Simon Rex, Jasper Keen, Christopher Kriesa, Augusta Allen-Jones, Rhiannon Frazier, Kenzie Shea Ross, Emily Perry, Nancy L. Gray, Brady Box and Kevin Wiggins.
Filmmaker Tony Tost’s Americana is a true original. In the movie, Sydney Sweeney portrays a stammering waitress named Penny Jo who isn’t what she appears to be on the surface. She’s got high aspirations to get the hell out of Dodge and go to Nashville to become a famous singer. Stammering or not, this girl’s got spunk. This characteristic of Penny Jo is all the more interesting when she joins forces with a loser in love named Lefty Ledbetter (Paul Walter Hauser) to make some money off an artifact (a Lakota Ghost shirt) which is supposed to yield a large amount of cash. Tost’s film starts off with a bang and doesn’t turn back as its story is told in several parts with different characters interspersed in the action throughout whose lives all come together in a strange and exciting way by the time the film reaches its didactic conclusion.
This movie opens with a young kid named Cal Starr (Gavin Maddox Bergman) who thinks he’s part of a tribe (or something like that). He ignores his sister, Amanda (Halsey), and her abusive boyfriend, but Cal defends himself with a bow and arrow when Amanda skips town without him and the abuser comes close to potentially hurting him. When we get to meet Penny Jo, she’s listening to Lefty’s potential proposal to a girl he’s known just a few weeks at most. The plot thickens as a group in the diner Penny Jo works in conspires to steal the aforementioned shirt/artifact from a very nice local home.
Lives intersect and parallel each other in this small American town in the middle of nowhere. There’s the always reliable Simon Rex’s character, Roy Lee Dean, who cuts a deal with Amanda to get his hands on the sought after shirt at a fair price. It’s a pleasure to watch all the scenes with Sweeney who is adorable in her part, at first, until we realize looks can be deceiving and money can turn or steer her in a completely different direction to pursue her artistic ambitions to be a popular singer.
Hauser’s turn as Lefty is earnest and quite interesting to watch. Lefty, it turns out, is actually a righty and nobody in this town is what they appear to be. A local, Hank Spears (a terrific Derek Hinkey), believes the shirt has great significance to his people, and soon, everybody in town wants a piece of the pie and seems to be after the artifact. All hell breaks loose in the movie in the most original way possible.
Americana knows its characters well and only lets the audience in on their purpose and motivations a little bit at a time. This gives the audience an attempt to try to piece together the puzzle the movie presents as characters’ lives intersect in creative ways.
Sweeney is the film’s MVP. Her character seems trustworthy, but there’s more than meets the eye with her as the audience will soon learn as the plot progresses. Hauser is the typical “average Joe,” and the actor captures the nuances of his character to a tee. Halsey is hilarious at times, as she eventually has people outside her family’s home trying to get the artifact. Amanda spoofs the way the people surrounding her talk at one point as she says she also goes by the name “Mandy.” You’ll have to see the movie to see the predicament she’s in at this point which makes the scene tense and funny at the same time. Halsey nails this role and then some. Her character has a secret in regard to her actual relationship with Cal, too, that gives the movie a touching edge.
Americana is at its best when it pits characters against each other. There is simply no easy way to trust certain people in this movie while others seem to have more potential to be heroic than other characters. Sweeney and Hauser have nice chemistry together whether or not it’s more platonic than romantic in nature. Hinkey and Rex more than hold their own in this fine cast and Bergman adds appeal to his unusual kid character here.
There are plenty of moments where people are shot down and the artifact is basically a MacGuffin no matter how much value it seems to hold for the people who pursue it. This artifact drives the plot, and the direction is always probing as the motivations of the characters are analyzed and the audience is forced to decide who the heroes and villains really are.
Americana ultimately works best as an example of the lengths people can go to try to achieve the unattainable American Dream. Everybody here is reaching for something, and most characters can’t seem to grasp that thing which they desire most. Sweeney’s sentimental character drives the plot forward the most, but other characters can also captivate the viewer as well. This is a well-rendered example of the lengths people can go to achieve the unachievable.
Rating: 7.5/10
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