During the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, two American cousins and childhood friends, who are now a businessman and a naval officer (played by Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman) get to live some time in Barcelona, where they face (but finally overcome) the political distrust of many Spaniards. Director Whit Stillman lived some time in Spain and he surely based part of the movie on his own experiences. The movie is fine skewing the unthinking Antiamericanism of Europe's intellectual class (though Stillman is too much of a gentleman to be too biting in his criticism). Sometimes the dialogue is foolish when it tries to be witty (as when the Americans try to explain to some Spaniards the greatness of Hamburgers) but mostly the screenplay is quite fine. Stillman is an interesting filmmaker if only because his preppy conservative point of view is not often showed on movies. Mira Sorvino plays one of the Spanish girls in one of her earlier roles.
