The title of the movie sounds a little grandiose, but it is meant to evoke a postcard, or a child's diary (like the one Christy composes with her video camera): not "this is what it means to be in America" but "this is what we saw when we were there."
This movie, from moment to moment, feels small, almost anecdotal. It is only afterward that, like Sheridan's other films, it starts to grow into something at once unassuming and in its own way grand.
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