With the fall of the Berlin wall, East German, Lena (Felicity Waterman)goes on holiday in California. Except, only tours Los Angeles, and Lena is having the worst vacation, as nothing seems to go as planned; she learns that reservations she made for a hotel turned out to be phony, a cab driver rips her off, and worst of all, her luggage has conveniently been switched with that of a lady who suddenly winds up dead. Although, this is understandable, considering how gullible Lena is. You'd think she was new to the planet the way she fell for one stupid scam after the next.
Only the scams look good when compared to the fact that she is being pursued by hoods who have been watching her. When the dead lady's bag doesn't contain what they want, they go after Lena, knowing she has the same bag and was the last to see the other lady alive. They figure that she is in on the deal. Things seem to turn around when Lena unexpectedly befriends a fast-talking cab driver named Mike (Chris Lemmon as a sometimes arrogant, sometimes sincere guy), who helps her in sporadically timed moments of emergency.
'Lena's Holiday' is more of a dreamy love story and a comedy surrounding a vacation nightmare (but pretty soon only just love the story) than it is a caper, which you're only reminded off at certain convenient moments in the movie. I would say it is about 70% love story, 20% comedy about Lena's disastrous holiday misadventures (which is pretty much the entire intro), and 10% caper. It is still an enjoyable comedy, nonetheless.
Only the scams look good when compared to the fact that she is being pursued by hoods who have been watching her. When the dead lady's bag doesn't contain what they want, they go after Lena, knowing she has the same bag and was the last to see the other lady alive. They figure that she is in on the deal. Things seem to turn around when Lena unexpectedly befriends a fast-talking cab driver named Mike (Chris Lemmon as a sometimes arrogant, sometimes sincere guy), who helps her in sporadically timed moments of emergency.
'Lena's Holiday' is more of a dreamy love story and a comedy surrounding a vacation nightmare (but pretty soon only just love the story) than it is a caper, which you're only reminded off at certain convenient moments in the movie. I would say it is about 70% love story, 20% comedy about Lena's disastrous holiday misadventures (which is pretty much the entire intro), and 10% caper. It is still an enjoyable comedy, nonetheless.