Hot Water

A Lebanese mother and her American son go on a road trip through the USA.

Layal is frustrated with her teenage son, Daniel. He has been suspended from school, so she decides to take him from Indiana to California to leave him with his father there. Layal and Daniel have grown up in very different environments – she from Lebanon and from a different generation, he as an American – and with completely different societal norms and rules. These cultural differences are central in the film, and the depiction of them is what differentiates it from other films in the all-American road movie genre. This is a beautiful, funny and poetic story of a broken mother-son relationship. 

The film premiered at Sundance earlier this year.  

USA: What the F**k is this Place?

The American Dream has long been built on four tenacious ideals: success, freedom, belonging and individuality. These four films examine what happens when those ideals collide with reality – and meet their opposites: tragedy, oppression, helplessness and erasure.

Podcast host and screenwriter Gjermund Eriksen introduces four films that cast a critical eye on the American Dream, in the USA strand "What the F**k is this Place".