American Boyfriends

Reprising her role as Sandy Wilcox, Margaret Langrick turns in another winning performance in this sequel to the critically acclaimed Canadian film My American Cousin. Director Sandy Wilson's semi-autobiographical story finds Sandy a few years older (17), and on her way to college when the film opens. The year is 1965. After a slow opening third during which Sandy and her friends discuss nothing but boys and sex, the film finally starts to go somewhere--across the border. Sandy, and her friends Thelma, Lizzie, and Julie head for Portland, Oregon to attend the wedding of Sandy's American cousin Butch. After the wedding, Butch gives Sandy his fancy red car. Thelma wants to go home and does, Lizzie wants to stay with her new boyfriend Darryl, who is leaving for Vietnam in six days, and Sandy and Julie want to meet California surfers. So the latter pair pile into the car and head for the beaches. But life occasionally intervenes, so it is not a couple of blonde hunks that Sandy and Julie end up with, but a Jewish draft dodger named Marty and his Black companion Spider. The quartet's brief sojourn through the bars leads them into serio-comic examinations of some of the moral dilemmas of the time, with an emphasis on the Vietnam War. American Boyfriends is a worthy successor to the heartwarmer My American Cousin. It is highly recommended.(R. Pitman)