''Americano'' is a 2011 French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Mathieu Demy Mathieu Demy (born 15 October 1972) is a French actor, film director, and producer. He is the son of French film directors Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy. Career Demy started as a young actor in Agnès Varda's films ''L'une chante, l'autre pas'' ...

. Demy also stars alongside

Geraldine Chaplin Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress whose long career has included multilingual roles in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German films. Geraldine is a daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of his eigh ...

Salma Hayek Salma Valgarma Hayek Pinault ( , ; ; born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela ''Teresa (1989 TV series), Teresa'' (1989–1991) as well a ...

and Chiara Mastroianni. Demy's mother,

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer. Varda's work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier ...

, who was also a filmmaker, served as a producer on the project. The film received its première at the

2011 Toronto International Film Festival The 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, between September 8 and September 18, 2011. Buenos Aires, Argentina was selected to be showcased for the 2011 City to City programme. The opening fil ...

on 8 September 2011 and later that month, was also screened at the

San Sebastián International Film Festival The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; , ) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spain, Spanish city of Donostia, Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Countr ...

, where it competed for the Kutxa-New Directors Award. In October it was played at the 55th

BFI London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. Founded in 1957, the festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 fe ...

Plot

In Paris, the relationship between Martin (Demy) and Claire (Mastroianni) is at an impasse. His mother's death suddenly calls Martin back to Los Angeles, the town where he spent his childhood, to deal with inheritance formalities. In Los Angeles he is helped by a family friend, Linda, who takes him to his mother's home and the neighbourhood he grew up in. This return to childhood haunts provokes several buried memories that appear to disturb Martin. After speaking with a neighbour, Martin goes to

Tijuana Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...

in Mexico, looking for Lola (Hayek), a close friend of his mother's. He tracks her down to the Americano, a club where Lola works as a dancer. However, to find resolution, Martin must face up to his past.

Cast

as Martin *

as Lola *

as Linda * Chiara Mastroianni as Claire * Carlos Bardem as Luis *

Jean-Pierre Mocky Jean-Pierre Mocky (6 July 1929 – 8 August 2019), pseudonym of Jean-Paul Adam Mokiejewski, was a French film director, actor, screenwriter and producer. Early life and education Mocky was born on 6 July 1929 in Nice, France, to Polish immigra ...

as Father *

André Wilms André Wilms (29 April 1947 – 9 February 2022) was a French film, television actor and theater director who also appeared in German and Finnish films. Wilms was the winner of the Best Supporting European Actor award at the 1992 European Film ...

: German

Reception

''Americano'' received an average rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars on the French website

AlloCiné AlloCiné is an entertainment website founded by Jean-David Blanc in 1988, then joined by Patrick Holzman. It has belonged to the company since 2013 Webedia. which specializes in providing information on French cinema, mostly centering on nove ...

, based on 23 reviews. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 50% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 50 out of 100, based on 8 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Notes

The memory scenes of Martin's childhood in Los Angeles are derived from Demy's mother,

's 1981 film ''Documenteur'', in which Demy appeared as a child.

References

External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, americano_2011 2011 films 2010s French-language films 2010s Spanish-language films French drama films 2011 drama films Films shot in Paris Films shot in Mexico Films shot in Los Angeles English-language French films Spanish-language French films 2010s English-language films 2011 multilingual films French multilingual films 2010s French films English-language drama films