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AMERICAN DREAMER – Review – We Are Movie Geeks

Review

AMERICAN DREAMER – Review

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(L-R) Shirley MacLaine as Astrid and Peter Dinklage as Phil Loder, in AMERICAN DREAMER. Courtesy of Vertical

In the comedy AMERICAN DREAMER, Peter Dinklage plays a curmudgeonly college professor with a dream to buy a home far beyond his limited means, while Shirley MacLaine plays a wealthy retiree who has just such a fabulous home for sale for an unbelievable price – with one big catch. Loosely inspired – very loosely – by real events, the major delight of this sometimes crazy comedy is in the pairing of Dinklage and MacLaine, who make a perfect, and perfectly insane, comedy duo in this film.

Dinklage plays Dr. Phil Loder who teaches economics from a sociological view at a small college. Loder may teach economics but his own economics are pretty dismal for a professor of the dismal science. Underpaid and twice-divorced, he doesn’t have tenure, and he can’t even seem to get a parking spot for his vintage car. Meanwhile, he spends his time dreaming about coming home to a grand mansion, preferable to be greeted by a beautiful wife. In fact, he has neither, and the twice-divorced professor is living alone in a dinky apartment. He spends all his free time searching for that perfect home, with his real estate broker Dell (Matt Dillon) inviting him to open houses for homes that fit his criteria but not his budget.

No one milks surly and begrudging for comedy like Dinklage, and he is entirely in his element here. While the college that employs him shows him little respect, his economics course has suddenly become popular with student, who enjoy his lectures peppered with snark and sarcasm representing his doom and gloom worldview. He has even drawn the romantic attention of a graduate student, Clare (Michelle Mylett) which he rationalizes is OK since she is over 21.

On the outs with his real estate agent after an outburst of temper, Loder scans the ads for a dream home – and finds an intriguing possibility. The grand waterfront property lists for millions but it has a second, special offer – if the buyer agrees to live on the property while also letting the elderly owner, a childless widow, remain for the rest of her life, the buyer can have it for mere $250,000. That’s still out of the professor’s range but he might be able to raise that amount.

Loder dispatches the real estate agent to make the deal, and sets out to sell everything to meet the price. When he gleefully shows up to move in, he finds matters are not quite as he imagined – or was told by the agent.

For one thing, he finds he must live in a rundown apartment over a garage instead of the huge main house. And the former owner, who Loder never met, turns out not quite to be the invalid teetering on death that the agent described. In fact, Astrid Finnelli (Shirley MacLaine) is pretty lively, puttering around the water-side property on her scooter and having no compunction about banging on Phil’s door regardless of the time if she has a question. Every day he’s there, a new wrinkle crops up, but the rule-breaking Loder doesn’t make matters any better, often being his own worst enemy.

The situation presents endless problems that challenge Loder, forcing him to adapt and change in ways he never expected. Dinklage milks the physical comedy aspects of this farcical tale, with perhaps a bit more bare skin than we really need to see.

MacLaine plays her character, who clearly is not on the verge of death, with the kind of imperious, aristocratic snobbery she does so well, with a touch of her “Downton Abbey” character. Her clueless, demanding aristocrat and Dinklage’s grumbling pro-proletariat academic make for a wonderful comic pair, and there are laughs in most every scene they share.

At one point, Dinklage’s Loder calls in a private investigator, played by Danny Glover, to try to figure out this twisty situation he finds himself in, and Glover brings a dry humor side to the humor proceedings.

Dinklage and MacLaine have great comic chemistry and as so good together, they draw laughs just glaring at each other. The film offers up a series of every escalating comic situations in classic comedy style. The humor is a bit raucous but never going too far, with each humorous scene building on the next. The humor in AMERICAN DREAMER is classic slapstick low-comedy, not sophisticated satire, but Dinklage’s character does go through a re-evaluation of his approach to the world and people, coming out with a fresh, more humane perspective. Astrid turns out to have another side, a more charitable, kinder one, which has a profound effect on Dinklage’s Loder, and gives the film am unexpected charm by its end.

The magic in AMERICAN DREAMER is in the unlikely pairing of Peter Dinklage and Shirley MacLaine, who light up the screen every time they share it, an effect grows more charming as the film unfolds.

As these comedies always do, the two start as adversaries but eventually begin to understand one another and even become friends. But the film goes further, and as the characters grow, they reveal unsuspected sides, with warm, generous hearts that reach out to those who need help, something we never expect at the film’s start.

AMERICAN DREAMER opens Friday, Mar. 8, in theaters and streaming on demand.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars