In this pleasant but rather lackadaisical follow-up to the modest Canadian sleeper MY AMERICAN COUSIN (1985) set several years later in the 1960s, Sandy Wilcox (Margaret Langrick), the now-almost-grown Canadian heroine of the first film, faces that awkward time of life when all her
friends begin marrying. Feeling abandoned, poised between her teenage years and responsible adulthood, she embraces college as the best way to prolong adolescence and postpone joining the white-picket-fence set. At her progressive school, Sandy makes friends with would-be hippie Julie La Belle
(Liisa Repo Martell) and tires of her classes quickly. Receiving a wedding invitation from Butch (John Wildman), the American cousin of the previous film, she persuades her hometown pals Lizzie and Thelma (Delia Brett and Michelle Bardeaux) to accompany her and Julie from Canada to Portland.
Although Thelma is preparing for her own nuptials, she chauffeurs the other three to the United States. Arriving just in time for the ceremony, the quartet surprises Butch and has a great time contemplating true love during his wedding reception. Lizzie, smitten with best man Daryl (Scott
Anderson), abandons her principles and accompanies him to the parking lot, where he both seduces her and informs her that he is about to be sent to Vietnam. Meanwhile, while conversing with her beloved cousin and his new bride, Sandy is stunned when he gives her his red Cadillac. Her plans change
immediately, as do Lizzie's. Remaining Stateside, Lizzie moves in with Daryl before he goes overseas, while Sandy and Julie decide to cut loose and explore California (leaving bride-to-be Thelma stuck with going back home by herself). Dreaming of blond surfers, the coeds are disappointed with the
Santa Cruz locals, who ignore them, and when they must rescue Berkeley radical Marty (Jason Blicker) and his African-American friend Spider (Troy Mallory) from the very same beach boys they had previously coveted, the young women re-examine their priorities. Sandy pairs off with Spider, who wants
to return to his school in LA; Julie grows enamored of anti-war activist Marty, who wants to head for Mexico. Their plans are upset, however, when, Sandy receives (from Lizzie) the tragic news that her cousin Bruce has been killed in an automobile accident, and after dropping Spider off on the
highway, the group returns to Portland for the funeral. Afterwards, Sandy and Julie--accompanied by Lizzie, whose romance is on the rocks--survive a close call with border authorities and successfully sneak Marty into Canada so he can dodge the draft. As the film ends, Sandy informs us in a
voice-over that Julie and Marty happily settled down on a Canadian island. As for Sandy herself: after making it to Thelma's wedding, she dropped out of school, hitchhiked through Europe, and vowed never to settle down.
AMERICAN BOYFRIENDS plays like the thinking person's WHERE THE BOYS ARE, reset in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Coasting along sweetly and appealingly, this light drama is more notable for its occasional observations about its 60s milieu than for any insights into the coming-of-age experience.
Unfortunately, the script tends to ramble almost as much as the characters do, and one begins to grow impatient with director-writer Sandy Wilson's habit of padding out scenes and letting the actors' slow rhythms set the pace. Though admirable in its understatedness, the story is too diffuse to
achieve any dramatic pay-offs, so that the film's "big moments" (Butch's funeral and Lizzie's seduction) seem like screenplay conveniences, and because the actors are often called upon to make the big dramatic statements that Wilson wants to put across, the proceedings sometimes become static and
talky.
AMERICAN BOYFRIENDS works best in its gentle exploration of middle-class attitudes in the 60s. In a sense, the film's ambling nature is as much its charm as it is a drawback, since the off-hand quality lends a certain spontaneity to some of the film's observations. A scene in which the girls are
having their hair teased (until they resemble a trio of Marie Antoinettes) while their beauticians argue about military involvement in Vietnam is a comic gem, and the cast of unknowns give sympathetic and winningly low-key performances.
If one can tolerate its meandering quality and ignore a few implausible plot developments, this picaresque film offers enough incidental pleasures to make it rewarding. It's knowing but affectionate, never mean-spirited or parodic--and since there have been so few good coming-of-age films about
young women, AMERICAN BOYFRIENDS's airy drollery and deadpan humor make it stand out all the more. Although predictably nostalgic, the film wears its heart on its sleeve with a casual flair. (Mild profanity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
