As a man I have never indulged in the stereotypical male interests that might measure my worth as an alpha male. I don't like cars (I don't have a drivers license and I am thirty years of age) and I don't care for sports. The one stereotypical male activity that I fallen prey to is I have, over the years, become a human bottle. Any pain that I have experienced over the years, I have bottled up and let it twist apart my insides until I can no longer function. Up until this film was released, I had never seen a performance that embodies this male weakness so perfectly like the one Paddy Considine delivers as a broken man in the film 'In America.' His portrayal of a man struggling with the loss of his son is absolutely heartbreaking. Every word, facial gesture, vocal intonation is a carefully crafted display of a man who is so broken and destroyed inside that every time he appeared on screen, an immediate lump would form in my throat. Having experience loss, I not only saw myself but I saw what I wasn't ready to accept. That is the mark of a truly great performance, when the actor is a mirror that you see yourself reflected in. Paddy Considine does this wonderfully. He plays the character like a sad song. A song that is a slow burning builder that you know will reach a crescendo eventually because it gets to a point where it has to reconcile the plain truth that there is nowhere else to go. when this moment happens in the film it is one of the single most heartbreaking moments I have ever seen captured on film.
Don't get me wrong, all of the performances in the film are wonderful. Samantha Morton (who has never turned in a bad or mediocre performance), Djimon Hounsou is wonderful and the Bolger sisters show remarkable insight for their age. But it was Paddy Considine's performance as Johnny, a broken man who has to endure the pain of watching his family wait him out while he shuts down, is the real triumph.
It was a travesty that he never received a Best Actor Nomination at the 2002 Academy Awards.
Every once in a while a film comes along that is both difficult to sit through and at the same time you feel better when you come out the other end of it.
Don't get me wrong, all of the performances in the film are wonderful. Samantha Morton (who has never turned in a bad or mediocre performance), Djimon Hounsou is wonderful and the Bolger sisters show remarkable insight for their age. But it was Paddy Considine's performance as Johnny, a broken man who has to endure the pain of watching his family wait him out while he shuts down, is the real triumph.
It was a travesty that he never received a Best Actor Nomination at the 2002 Academy Awards.
Every once in a while a film comes along that is both difficult to sit through and at the same time you feel better when you come out the other end of it.