‘Americana’: Sydney Sweeny’s Other Currently Playing Movie

R | 1h 47m | Neo-Western, Crime-Thriller, Comedy | 2025

“Americana” is the weak left jab that set up Sydney Sweeney’s one-two film-combo, the right-cross power-punch of which was “Eden.” All of it was preceded by her ring-announcer-like American Eagle jeans modeling ad. As legendary dee-jay Wolfman Jack would have said (with reverb), “Sydney Sweeney is everywhere-where-where-where!”

“Americana” is Coen-brothers-ish neo-Western, with all the requisite tumbleweed landscapes and 1970s muscle car tropes. In the case of “Americana” it’s a neon-orange 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The other currently playing neo-Western (an actual Coen Brothers film) “Honey, Don’t,” features a blue 1972 Chevy Chevelle SS convertible. It’s all a bit predictable.

“Americana” also has a MacGuffin; a priceless Lakota ghost shirt, which is sought after throughout by a large cast of desperadoes, both criminal and not. The Lakota ghost shirts were spiritually imbued garments from the Ghost Dance religion of the late 19th century. Painted with sacred nature symbols like stars, moons, and birds, they were believed to provide spiritual protection (particularly from bullets) and offered hope for a renewed world.

The Various Claims on the Ghost Shirt

First, single mom Mandy Starr (pop singer Halsey) steals the shirt after her abusive boyfriend Dillon (Eric Dane) ripped it off a wealthy artifact collector. Selling the shirt will allow Mandy to escape Dillon.

However, Mandy’s young Caucasian son Cal (Gavin Maddox Bergman), who fervently believes himself to be the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, feels that he must, forthwith, return said ghost shirt to his tribe. He’s not sure where his tribe lives, but he’s gonna find out.

At the same time, a pretty red-headed waitress with a world-class stammer, Penny Jo Poplin (Sweeney), and one of her regular customers at the local diner, Lefty (Paul Walter Hauser) happen to overhear plans to steal the shirt.

Penny Jo is as sweet as she can be, reminiscent of Sissy Spacek in “Carrie,” with the same virulent lack of self-esteem and overbearing, shaming Mom. Penny feels the filching and fencing of the artifact will finance the blowing of the proverbial small-town-life popsicle-stand—for Nashville. Penny can’t talk too well, but the girl sure can sing.

Meanwhile, members of a local Lakota Sioux militant group wish to reclaim the ghost shirt, naturally, for its cultural and spiritual importance.

When the mysterious collector—who hired the thieves in the first place—finds out Mandy is holding the elusive Lakota MacGuffin, he sets up a meeting—the location will be her fundamentalist parents’ cult-y compound. As all the various group converge, tension builds toward an inevitable and Tarantinoesque, bloody showdown.

Overall

“Americana” has a great setup, but the story features too many of today’s favorite stereotypes—single moms, reservation-raised Native-Americans who talk like ghetto-raised African-Americans, patriarchal toxic white men, at-risk latchkey kids, religious cultists, and an assortment of desert-dwelling losers—criminal and not.

It’s too easy to predict where it’s all headed, who survives, and who gets skewered by arrows. All of the above would be fine if there was even a modicum of character development, but no distinct personalities propel the story; they’re all flat stereotypes that fail to rejuvenate the genre conventions. I suppose all of that does, ironically, add up to a particular kind of Americana.

The only modest exceptions are Sweeney and Hauser. Sydney Sweeney is very compelling as Penny Jo, but the script basically gives her only a stammer to work with. Paul Walter Hauser’s Lefty has an obsessive habit of proposing to every woman he spends more than 10 minutes with, which is supposed to be funny, but which is more, you know, just sad.

Ultimately, young Cal’s broken-record Sitting Bull schtick highlights the principal weakness of “Americana,” which is its insistence on presenting characters a tad too colorful to be fully believable. “Americana” would like to showcase forgotten everyday people who possess endearingly unusual traits, but the writing isn’t sharp enough to provide believable character arcs that evolve beyond mildly cartoonish idiosyncrasies.

By the end, “Americana” is more interested in preaching than telling a story. A modern-day chase for a sacred artifact could have been a lot of fun, and with this cast, the film should have knocked it out of the reservation. Instead, it feels bogged down, heavy, and far too concerned with making statements instead of just being entertaining.

‘Americana”
Director: Tony Tost
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Simon Rex, Eric Dane
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Release Date: Aug. 15, 2025
Rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 5

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