40 years ago, 'Lost in America' was a boomer yuppie’s comedic reckoning

Albert Brooks directed a movie about a bougie 1980s couple that takes, literally, the road not taken.

Lost in America is a movie that could pretty much only have been made and set at the exact moment when it was. It’s the story of a man (Albert Brooks) of the tail end of the boomer generation who once subscribed to the ideals of the counterculture but, by the time of the Reagan era, had gone the professional route and thoroughly compromised his values.

But after he’s passed over for a promotion at his ad agency and fired, David (Brooks) and his wife Linda (Julie Hagerty) decide to sell all their assets and live the hippie dream, buying a Winnebago and traveling the country.

The film arrived in theaters in March 1985, 40 years ago this week.

Since they “rode the inflation train,” they can sell their house, not buy another, and have nearly $200,000 left over. This allows them to stop working, walk the earth, and “find themselves,” like their old hippie friends presumably did in their 20s, they’re doing it with a nest egg.

Usually, when adults sell everything and start traveling by Winnebago, it’s known as “retirement,” but this time, it’s different. The two seem inspired by Easy Rider, and in an amusing running joke about how the counterculture stood in 1985, David keeps mentioning that film to people, and while some have never heard of it, one motorcycle cop had seen it- and loved the part at the end when Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper get blown away.

David and Linda’s story doesn’t end violently like theirs did, but things don’t turn out the way they planned, especially after that six-figure next egg fails to survive a single trip to a Vegas casino. In one of the best scenes in the film, David, an ad man, tries to sell the casino owner (Garry Marshall) on forgiving their debt and treating it as a publicity stunt.