Albert Brooks's Reagan-era yuppie escapist fantasy. His performance in the early scene where he doesn't get a promo (he expected the keys to the executive washroom) at his world-class advertising firm reminded me of William H. Macey in Magnolia. Immediately after qutting/getting fired he convinces wife Julie Hagerty to abandon her thankless job so they can hit the road in a massive RV (a Winnebago of course, presumably a sponsor) instead of upsizing; the delta in cost is the nest egg that will see them through a few decades of nomadism. When the inevitable happens and eternal poverty beckons he banks on the role he passed up in NYC rather than the more obviously dropping-out-conformant move of finding a niche in the drug business.
Brooks's notion of the America you might get lost in if you started in Los Angeles more-or-less stops at Las Vegas and is mostly the arid bits. The whole thing is more Office Space than the oft-cited Easy Rider; I mean, they entirely pass on the recreational pharmaceuticals. It's more slickly produced than his earlier work but also more formulaic.
Roger Ebert: four stars and an urbanite dream: "Look for me in the weather reports. I'll be parked by the side of a mountain stream, listening to Mozart on Compact Discs. All I'll need is a wok and a paperback.". Yep, it's a sitcom. Janet Maslin: A critic's pick and on the making of; asking of Brooks, 'Where does his time go?': "'Go ahead, name a day,' he said in mock defiance. 'I can account for them all.'"