Adventures on the Internet

The publicity blurb entices the viewer with the promise that
"...Elizabeth embarks on a journey across America, leaving behind memories [...] and she witnesses the true depths of loneliness and emptiness"
and there is indeed a short passage in the middle of the film that delivers the goods.
However, one has to endure a cloyingly sentimental encounter between Elizabeth and ex-pat New York cafe proprietor Jeremy (played by an irritating Jude Law) beforehand and at the close, which more than takes the edge off the enjoyment.
The Guardian's review offers a more balanced view:
"...it is also vapid and ephemeral, trading in a kind of karaoke Americana that bounces us from cafe to bar to truck stop for the simple reason that they are there to be bounced between."

Verdict: Unsuitable for all ages.

The early scenes of this film, tracking journalist Philip Winter as he drifts through the backwaters of 1970s America are pure delight, capturing the everyday banality of the country.Back in New York, his encounter with a former girlfriend offers some hints of Winter's troubled relationship with his world.

When his editor sends him back home to Germany to finish the story he should have already completed, Winter runs into nine year old Alice and her mother at the airport and they end up sharing a hotel room whilst waiting for a flight the next day. Alice's mother disappears next morning leaving Alice in the care of Winter on the flight home, promising to catch up with them in a couple of days. When she doesn't show, Winter finds himself responsible for tracking down Alice's grandmother, somewhere in Germany.

From a modern-day perspective, the pairing of Winter and Alice seems rather contrived. (Surely even a madwoman would be unlikely to leave her daughter in the care of an unknown male nowadays?) Consequently, their journey from Amsterdam and around the Rhine Valley leaves one slightly uneasy, although that is soon forgotten as the search takes them to Wuppertal, affording some glorious shots of the Wuppertal overhead railway.
Generally described as a road movie, Alice in the Cities is in fact a rail movie. Essential viewing.