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"A
Showcase for Penn"
Sean
Penn may be the most gifted actor of his generation. He has been
showered with comparisons to Brando, Clift, Nicholson and others
and yet he continues to repeat threats to “retire” from
acting completely. Instead, Penn wants to direct focusing on
quirky, original fare like this year’s Nicholson drama The
Pledge.
Well,
let’s hope that this threat remains a hollow one. Once more
Penn shows what all the fuss is about in I Am Sam, a
potentially maudlin courtroom drama that somehow bursts through
as one of the better films of the year.
Penn
is Sam Dawson, a handicapped man who has never mentally matured
past the age of seven. Holding a job at a local Starbucks, he
maintains a life of quietly detailed order that helps him get
through the day. He and his circle of friends have orderly
get-togethers such as Wednesday movie nights or Thursday morning
breakfasts at I-Hop.
This
all changes when Sam becomes a father. Faced with
responsibilities even the most experienced adult has troubles
with, his orderly and structured life is thrown into the
hyperbolic chaos that a child can bring. But with the help of
his reclusive next-door neighbor Annie (Diane Wiest) and an
endless supply of love, Sam learns to be a supremely nurturing
father to his little girl, named innocently after a favorite
Beatles song.
Kids,
however, don’t follow routine very well. It’s in their
nature to grow and evolve thus being the case with Lucy (Dakota
Fanning). Like any child, questions are the name of the game and
sooner or later she’s going to ask the one question Sam
doesn’t want to hear – “You’re not like other Daddies,
are you Daddy?” With that question, it becomes clear to both
parent and child that their relationship has begun to change in
irrevocable ways.
More
so than they anticipate, as the child welfare office deems Sam
an unfit parent and takes Lucy away from him, devastating his
emotional balance. Sam’s friends decide that what is needed to
get Lucy back into her father’s loving arms is a lawyer. Using
the most scientific method they can think of – namely looking
for the biggest ad in the yellow pages – they go about finding
him one.
Enter
Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), a big-time lawyer who only
seems to care only about her own success and wants nothing to do
with Sam’s case. But to look better in the eyes of her
colleagues she reluctantly agrees to take charge of Sam’s
appeal to regain custody of Lucy. Yet Rita’s own personal life
is a mess. She has a child who can’t stand her, a marriage
that is falling apart and her co-workers think she’s a selfish
witch. Through helping Sam she might find redemption in her own
life, something the high-strung Rita never imagined.
I
Am Sam
has movie of the week written all over it. It’s also a
textbook case of Oscar baiting what with a high profile, well
respected actor playing a mentally handicapped character in a
highly sentimental melodrama.
Damned
if the whole thing doesn’t work despite all of this. Penn may
be playing just the type of character Oscar loves, but don’t
hold that against him. This is a fiery, complex performance and
one of the more brutally honest depictions of mental illness the
screen has seen. Penn’s portrayal is free of the general tics
and gestures that most actors employ when diving into such
parts, and his style is so loose and natural it’s easy to
forgive the film when it treads into more treacle-ridden
territory.
The
rest of the cast shines quite nicely, working off of Penn’s
lead. Pfeiffer has one of her strongest roles in years as the
driven Rita – even if one particular breakdown moment screams
“Oscar clip!” in bright neon exclamation points – and
little Fleming is astonishingly good as the
wise-beyond-her-years Lucy. Jessie Nelson directs with a
relatively steady hand and his use of Beatle’s classics is
more inspired than you would first expect. While his and
Kristine Johnson’s script does dip far too close to cheap
sentiment at times, mostly it manages to maintain course, justly
earning is its tears in the end.
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