"Americano," by Mathieu Demy, at Sunshine Cinema It would be quite possible, based on its first 10 minutes or so, to dismiss - or perhaps to celebrate - "Americano" as an exercise in cinematic nepotism. The main character, Martin, is played by Mathieu Demy, who also directed (this is his first feature) and who is the son of two great French filmmakers: Agnès Varda, the lioness of the Nouvelle Vague, and Jacques Demy, beloved by discerning romantics around the world for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." Martin's girlfriend, Claire, is played by Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of the "Umbrellas" star Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. When a family emergency summons Martin to Los Angeles, the first person he meets is a woman named Linda, played by Geraldine Chaplin, whose pedigree hardly needs elaboration. Mr. Demy renders Martin's memories of his California childhood by incorporating scenes from Ms. Varda's 1981 film "Documenteur," in which he played a small, wide-eyed boy, also named Martin. "Americano" is thus something of a sequel, in which certain moods and implications of his mother's film - the loneliness that can seem almost like a geographical fact of American life, the distance that can invade even the most intimate relationships - are revisited and revised. Though not explicitly autobiographical, this film is deeply personal, and while the nature of cinema is very much on its mind, it rarely feels insular or self-conscious. Instead, it is wistful and nostalgic, and at the same time full of restless curiosity. Martin, who works in real estate, seems to have committed himself to unhappiness. He does not appear sure of his commitment to Claire, or to any particular identity for himself, and so his return to the place where he once lived with his mother is in part a journey of self-discovery. The relevant details from the past are that after Martin's parents split up (Jean-Pierre Mocky plays his boorish, Bohemian father), he lived with his mother (Sabine Mamou in the clips from "Documenteur") in a modest house near Venice Beach before returning to France. After his mother's death, Martin flies to California to sell the house and settle her modest estate, with help from the chatty, chain-smoking Linda. He wants to take care of business quickly, to bury his own feelings before his mother's funeral, but he finds himself drawn into aspects of her life that he knew nothing about. A mysterious envelope, arriving at his mother's address stamped "return to sender," is the first bread crumb on a trail that leads him to a desolate trailer park and then to Tijuana, Mexico, in search of a woman named Lola. The Lola he finds - who may or may not be the Lola he seeks - works as a stripper and a prostitute in a nightclub called Americano. Though her interest in Martin is limited, this Lola (Salma Hayek) engages him, for a fee, in vague, intense conversations about his mother. As an actor, Mr. Demy is quiet and controlled, a watchful and slyly magnetic presence. As a director, he owes less of a debt to his parents than to the American film noir tradition and, above all, to the melancholy romanticism of Wim Wenders, the German auteur whose love of scruffy North American locations, ambiguous quest narratives and the color red seems to resonate through much of "Americano." The movie wanders, as diffidently as Martin himself, into some fairly hokey, sentimental territory - the sad whore, the john who thinks he can rescue her and the talkative street urchin are not exactly fresh characters - but the sincerity of the enterprise redeems some of the clichés. And these, in any case, are part of the cinematic inheritance that Mr. Demy is exploring. Movies are part of his own particular parental legacy, but they also represent a communal storehouse of images and genres, a reservoir of adaptable dreams and renewable meanings. "Americano" is a film of modest ambitions - it does not strive for greatness or novelty - but it demonstrates unassuming self-assurance and an admirable willingness to take formal and emotional risks in pursuit of a complicated and elusive truth. Americano Written and directed by Mathieu Demy; director of photography, George Lechaptois; edited by Jean-Baptiste Morin; music by Georges Delerue and Gregoire Hetzel; set design by Arnaud Roth; costumes by Rosalie Varda; produced by Mr. Demy and Angeline Massoni; released by MPI Pictures. At the Landmark's Sunshine Cinema, 143 East Houston Street, East Village. WITH: Mathieu Demy (Martin), Salma Hayek (Lola), Geraldine Chaplin (Linda), Chiara Mastroianni (Claire), Carlos Bardem (Luis), Jean-Pierre Mocky (Martin's father) and Sabine Mamou (Martin's mother).