In America

As a film director I attend many screenings. As a film lover I have been going to films all my life since I was a "kid" in the Bronx. This film, "In America" is one for the ages. Not one false note or as we say in the "biz"--not one hiccup. Jim Sheridan has been a extraordinary film-maker since "My Left Foot"--but this film is simply beyond words!

Johnny, Sarah and their young daughters Christy and Ariel move to New York from Ireland. With barely any money they find an apartment in a run-down building that is overrun with drug addicts. Johnny, an actor, struggles to get a role and the family eke out an existence. Also hanging over them is the death of their son, Frankie. Then one day the little girls meet and befriend the mysterious, solitary neighbour, Mateo.

Written and directed by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In The Name Of The Father), the movie is a bitter-sweet experience. The trials and tribulations of an immigrant family struggling to make ends meet, mixed with the recent tragedy in their history and the complexity of the Mateo situation make for an emotional journey. The daughters also provide a sweet, innocent perspective to proceedings.

Yet it all feels underdone. The family's situation is not as grittily shown as we imagine it should be. The basic summary of this movie reminded me of another Irish movie, Angela's Ashes, and that was a harrowing journey, where no positive outcomes are assured, making for an incredibly interesting and engaging experience. This movie is too neat and non-confrontational to feel like there are any really negative plot developments ahead.

In addition, certain key aspects are not developed very well. We never really get to know Mateo well enough to feel totally engaged by his character. Even the Frankie story, possibly the most emotional aspect to the movie, feels it is in there to demand our emotional energy rather than earn it, and the conclusion to that feels a bit clumsy.

Can't fault the performances though. Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton put in solid performances as Johnny and Sarah, as does Djimon Hounsou as Mateo and Sarah and Emma Bolger steal the show as Christy and Ariel.

Overall: an interesting, emotional movie but far from perfect.

I love this little film. I was pregnant at the time when I saw it with my husband who is from Ireland. We both enjoyed the film for it's romance, it's humanity, and qualities that were so earthy and yet somehow ethereal. It was both beautiful and moving--one of those rare finds that illuminates, truth, beauty, and the honesty that art can evoke. Art--especially the theater and cinema has the power to inspire and can be so powerful. This film is living proof of that. The film has an integrity and a quality of strength that few films ever capture. It is my dream to both create and perform in little films like this. I want to inspire and create something that makes a spiritual leap--something that lasts and endures for all time because of its quality of a diamond in the rough. If you want to see something a bit unusual, though provoking, emotional, and rare--see this film.

If you're of a sensitive caring disposition, are empathetic, loving and genuinely see the best in people then this is a film for you. No leaps of faith needed here as Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton share with us the plight of those less well off than most. After suffering a traumatic family event we find them in a new country, a new city, with all its cultural variations and contradictions to overcome - a landscape of limited opportunity. Join them on their journey but be warned, their daughters Christy and Ariel will steal your heart, break you in two, stream tears from your soul. Join them on their journey and let it remind you what it means to be alive.

Although they tell border control that they are on holiday, Johnny, Sarah and their two daughters have immigrated illegally into the US in the early 1980's. They move to New York into a block full of junkies and down-and-outs. With little money and no friends the family face all manner of stresses and strains in their present and from their past – stresses that threaten the family unit and their future together.

The names in this project attracted me to it and I did have high hopes for it. The film itself though is a strange, rather frustratingly mixed affair that is really good in some regards but annoyingly soapy in others. The plot is not really a plot in the traditional sense but more the recollections of moving into the new world told from the perspective of elder daughter Christy. I was fine with this approach and hoped that it would be convincing, engaging, moving and so on. Although you can see everyone working against it, the film cannot avoid the spirit of sentimentality and soapy-drama seeping into the majority of the scenes. This takes away from the grit and reality of the drama and does make it harder to get into because it doesn't engage in the way that the same events may have if they had been delivered with more grit and less of the soapy-inspirational quality.

It is a shame that the film cannot shake this off but it is not the fault of the cast who are roundly really good. Considine yet again gives me good reason to respect him as an actor, likewise Morton who works well with him as well as individually. They are really well supported by two very natural and engaging performances from the Bolger sisters; they are "cute kids" but not in a way that is cloying or annoying. Hounsou has a strong presence in the film and to his credit he delivers this despite the material handed him – not because of it. The cast doesn't really have a weakness and one can only imagine what this film would have been if Sheridan had been given people capable of a lot less.

Overall then this is a mixed affair. The performances and direction makes it better than it could otherwise have been, but these cannot shake off the sentimentality and soapy feel that much of it has. The end result is a film that has great moments and a story that I really wanted to lose myself in but ultimately was just too melodramatic at its core for all the strengths to totally overcome.