Americano

The erotic box art picture of voluptuous Salma Hayek gives a mildly misleading impression of actor-writer-director Mathieu Demy's debut, a bluesy, border-hopping piece in which Demy stars as Martin, a disaffected young Frenchman with dual U.S. citizenship. Upon the death of his long-estranged mother in Los Angeles, Martin heads stateside to sort out her estate, and is surprised to learn that his difficult mother was close to a neighbor named Lola, the intended recipient of the matriarch's possessions. Martin follows Lola's trail to Tijuana—only to find that Lola is a cynical stripper-prostitute (Hayek), who resists sharing information about Martin's mother. The more he is rebuffed, however, the more obsessed Martin becomes in seeking clues to the past—realizing that he might be mistaken about his childhood and broken family. While Hayek does perform an exotic dance in a transparent fishnet bodysuit, this is mostly a melancholy tale that features some second-generation movie royalty (Geraldine Chaplin, Chiara Mastroianni). The filmmaker is himself the son of French cinema greats Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, and he shows a sure hand at creating satisfying drama from interpersonal relationships. Recommended. (C. Cassady)