thewalrus8

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.

I am about thirty-five minutes into this movie and I have to say, it's a tad too much. I am not surprised, that is what I expected. To say the movie is heavy-handed is a huge understatement. That is not to say that the move is bad, it has heart and I am sure that the people involved had a 're-inventing the wheel' mentality while making this film. Some of the performances are quite good. Ben Foster is brilliant at moments, he just tends to push the 'Al Pacino' button at times and it gets a little too much, Emilie Hirsch is quite a lot of fun to watch regardless of the movie (i.e. Lords Of Dogtown), Justin Timberlake has a lot of potential (give him three-four movies, Shrek the Third excepted as one of those movies) and Bruce Willis is awesome (Hudson Hawk included. "What the hell is wrong with Hudson Hawk, by the way.) But I have about forty-five minutes to an hour left, so if the movie does a complete about-face and gets it together and opts for saying something of real value as opposed to how many times they say the f word in an hour and forty minutes then I will write another post apologizing and eating a load of crow.

incredible.If i was a writer i could only hope to write something as layered and inventive as this screenplay. I wish Paul Thomas Anderson could average a movie every two years. Everyone in this movie gives amazing performances and with the script and direction that pta provides, it would be hard to mess this film up. I was completely moved and left breathless after I saw this movie when it first hit theaters. Tom Cruise gives his best performance and Philip Seymour Hoffman brings subtlety and honesty to a character that would have been headed for cheese ville if put in the hands of a lesser actor. I don't want to give anything away, just see it! See it like there is no tomorrow. Kevin Smith can make fun of this movie all he wants to, but let's be honest, Jersey Girl can suck my b---s.