You may have run across My American Cousin when flipping around cable channels in the United States. A sleepy little film about a 12-year-old Canadian girl in Canada who gets a visit from her American cousin in his beautiful Cadillac.
My American Cousin is based on the experiences of writer/director Sandy Wilson. Though the film came out in 1985, the attention to detail leaves you in an authentic time warp circa 1959.
Margaret Langrick establishes herself well in the lead role as Sandy Wilcox, a girl who can't wait to be a teenager. The car becomes symbolic for her desire to get out of rural Penticton, British Columbia. The cousin is also a symbol of boys, who she is still trying to figure out, and the United States that represents paved roads and freedom.
Butch Walker (John Wildman) is 17 years old, eons apart from Sandy and her friends in age. Butch is chasing after older women than Sandy and her friends. Walker is clearly hiding the reason he is in Canada, which only adds to the mystery.
Wilson does a really nice job with the soundtrack to tell part of the story. Sandy mentions that they only hear rock and roll at certain times where they live in Canada while Butch says they get rock and roll all the time where he lives in California.
We get to see the wonder that is the Okanagan Valley and hear references to Kelowna.
As we noted, the film is a little sleepy and more naive as compared to other films set in this time period. The parents are seen as 3-dimensional characters, something a 12-year-old doesn't always see in the moment.
Wilson also wrote and directed American Boyfriends (1989), the sequel to My American Cousin. To Wilson's credit, some of the naiveté remains true as the story has advanced to 1965. That naiveté comes up against the realities of the Vietnam War, not a concern in Canada but relevant in the United States.
Butch, her American cousin, is getting married in Portland. Lizzie and Thelma, characters not particularly well-drawn in the original film, get swept up in Sandy's trip as well as Sandy's Simon Fraser University roommate Julie La Belle (Liisa Repo-Martell).
Thelma, who is planning her own wedding, drives the girls down to Portland. Butch and Sandy reconnect at the wedding. His present to her is something she has thought about since the original film: the Cadillac. With Lizzie in love with a Marine and Thelma going back to Canada, Sandy and Julie set off on the adventure she has wanted: California.
Sandy and Julie confront the Vietnam War in 2 young men they meet in California who are deciding to serve or run. The sequel is more meaningful in the context of history. The United States is as beautiful as Sandy would have imagined, but this is a different America than she dreamed about in 1959.
Julie’s character is almost drawn in the way Sandy would imagine an ideal travel partner: company as well as someone who easily goes along with the adventure. Julie is from Toronto and is a more sophisticated travel partner than either of Sandy’s childhood friends from Penticton.
See Canada through Canadian road films
You can watch the sequel as a film onto itself, but the original gives some needed context. The other major contrast was that this Canadian film takes place almost exclusively outside Canada. The road trip takes a similar turn in Bruce McDonald's Highway 61.
CanadianCrossing.com film reviews
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
Both My American Cousin and American Boyfriends play into a common theme in Canadian films about Canadian feelings of inferiority towards the United States. The difference in these films is that the theme runs alongside the plot instead of being dominant.
My American Cousin won 6 Genie Awards and received 11 nominations. The film won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Wildman), Best Actress (Langrick), and Best Film Editing.
video credit: YouTube/J Mac
photo credit: American Boyfriends
Comments