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Thursday, May 15th
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Movie Forums :: Reviews :: I Am Sam: All You Need Is Love |
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Posted on 2/12/02
I Am Sam: All You Need Is Love
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Think "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss and the joy and wonder you imagine a child would feel while reading it - and then imagine that child as Sean Penn (Sam Dawson). He does a wonderful job of capturing a disabled man in his thirties faced with an awesome task: To care for the infant he fathered with a homeless woman who used him for a place to stay. "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" - Lucy Diamond Dawson (Dakota Fanning), is the product of that union, and with the help of friends and the meager income from his job at Starbucks, Sam does the best he can with what he has been given.
Sam is a man with autistic tendencies who has the mental capacity of a 7 year old - when his daughter begins to near his intelligence level and begins to surpass it, she is forced to walk to the line between daughter and parent, and her innocence and happiness are jeopardized with the legal system decides it's time to call Sam on his parenting. Can Sam provide the care that his child needs, or can the system provide a family that can do so much more than he can? To fight this battle, Sam lucks into lawyer Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), who's ambition and sense of social failure pushes hers into taking his case pro bono. Together, they must find a way to communicate to each other, to their children, and the legal system that a parent is a parent, and no matter what the nature of a parent's intelligence or financial status, love is what every child needs, and what Lucy outright demands. Only her father, who has cared for her her entire life, can provide that, no matter how much a new foster mother with glowing ringlets and a huge house (Laura Dern) might seem to "fit the bill."
Sean Penn's performance is stellar; during the most trying emotional scenes you can feel his frustration and confusion. I'm one who usually can't stand such scenes for long in a movie so at one point I just closed my eyes. Pfeiffer doesn't play a very hard role - she has some tears, a bit of frustration, but I think she conveys what a lot of people do right now - too busy for anything, too busy for emotional sustenance, too busy to breathe. She's an every day woman worrying about her career and caught up in the miscommunication that so many parents have these days in a world of things and money - does she not want to play with her son, or does he not want to play with her? Will a Razor scooter make up for her lack of attention? What kind of home life is she providing and is she good enough as a parent, or to even be his parent? Sam and Rita finally understand one another at the lowest point of hope in the movie - any parent can feel just as helpless as a child, just as disabled and useless and incapable, and it is only love that conquers these doubts and the mistakes one makes, to produce a perfectly healthy, happy child reared with love.
Dakota Fanning (Lucy) has the stereotypical wide eyes, round cheeks, and alabaster skin of an angel; she does well, however, conveying the sense of age and a slight taint to her innocence as she begins to understand the difference between herself and her father and how the world will treat the both of them. By the end of the film the love in her face is just as tangible as the tired tension and fragility - the price paid from too much stress, confusion, hurt - and the realization that the issues she is tangled up in are going to be with her for the rest of her life.
Overall, the film was ok; however, you may find it tugs a bit too hard on the heartstrings trying to to earn its "weight." But, in a sense, if you realize that Sam is a child you also realize he's going to react intensely to things, good or bad. I did find it hard to accept all the "luck" Sam has - he has some bad luck but if you pay attention you'll notice a lot of good things happen by happy coincidence, and I think just a few too many. Also, the camera movement in this film I will have to flat out say was godawful - I understand that they were trying to show the world through Sam's eyes and with the same sense of confusion and of being overwhelmed. However, overwhelming your viewer with jerky pans, literally shaking up the view on the screen, often made me dizzy and headachy. A friend and I had to keep refocusing - it was often just too much.
This is a film probably more geared to the sentimental type and will probably upset children - it will probably hit too close to home for them. I didn't regret the dollar spent at the box office but I also didn't feel enlightened for having seen the flick - this may be different for others, who may have yet to learn some of the lessons that this film is trying to teach. But, as usual, Sean Penn is worth watching.
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