In America Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)November 3rd, 2003
IN AMERICA
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'Be careful what you wish for' the very serious, older-than-her-years Christy (Sarah Bolger) tells us, words of advice from her deceased younger brother Frankie who has endowed his sister with precisely three trips to the wishing well. Through Christy's eyes, we share the first four seasons her Irish immigrant family spends repairing its heartbreak with the help of a dying man "In America."
Producer/writer/director Jim Sheridan ("In the Name of the Father") takes an amalgamation of his own personal experience, aided by his cowriting daughters Naomi and Kirsten, to create an Irish family overcoming personal tragedy while struggling to begin again in New York City's Hell's Kitchen. Delivering the story through the eyes of a child gives the tale a magical sheen, letting light flow into an environment that normally would be seen as dreary and depressing. Sheridan doesn't pull any punches, though, earning the film's sentiments with genuine emotion.
Christy uses her first wish when Canadian border guards begin to ask probing questions. The film's tone is then set as the family drives through the tunnel that will bring them into Manhattan, The Loving Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic?" begins to crackle over the radio, engaging the airwaves full blast as the car bursts into the neon-lit city. The only housing that will have them is a gloomy, graffiti-splattered, cavernous old Hell's Kitchen tenement (a beauty of production design, recreated in Ireland by Mark Geraghty "The Count of Monte Cristo") populated with junkies, transvestites and 'the screaming man' who lives behind a door emblazoned with the words 'Keep out.' The viewpoint of parents Johnny (Paddy Considine, "The Last Resort") and Sarah (Samantha Morton, "Morvern Callar"), overcoming the loss of a child which has strained their marriage while holding together a family with meager resources, and their daughters Christy and Ariel (Emma Bolger) are delineated upon entering the apartment. Sarah covers dismay with the hopeful opinion that the place will be fine after they fix it up a bit while Ariel excitedly asks 'Daddy, can we keep the pigeons?' and Christy wonders at the bathtub in the living room.
Each season is marked by a signifying event. Summer brings the family's first experience of inner city humidity. Sarah is undone by the heat and Johnny's superhuman strength and will in dragging an air conditioner across the city and up the stairs is solid proof of his love for her. Fall ('That's what they call it in America, dad') brings Halloween and Mateo (Djimon Hounsou, "Gladiator"), the screaming man whose door Ariel almost literally breaks down. Winter brings both the magic of snow and the hovering of death in a dangerous pregnancy for Sarah and Mateo's medicine stocked fridge. Spring recycles death into a new life and rejuvenation. The past, present and future are contained in Christy's camcorder, which holds the family's memories of their prior life and the missing Frankie even as it records the images which will become their new memories.
Sheridan packs "In America" with symbolism. The ice cream parlor where Sarah gets a job (and begins building community) is called Heaven, a place the little girls can be sent when they need watching. The E.T. doll Ariel begs for at a carny booth that Johnny almost loses the family rent money to obtain (a very tense scene) is a stand-in for Mateo, the alien who becomes family before departing. Ariel is dressed as an angel when she melts Mateo's anger while Christy's Autumn costume is an unwitting comment on his condition. Johnny's a father who needs to come back to life after losing a son while Mateo is a son who has lost his parents as he faces death.
Sheridan's cast is sublime, an ensemble in perfect synch with one another. Morton, in a Sinead O'Connor cut of the mid '80s, has the most difficult role as the mother maintaining optimism to keep her family intact while she struggles with the opposing forces of love and blame she feels toward her husband. Considine, so terrific in the little seen Shooting Gallery release "The Last Resort," will hopefully be more prominent after his soulful work here. Unable to regain joy in his family, Considine struggles on, dredging emotion up from somewhere trying to find work as an actor. Considine and Hounsou nail a confrontational scene that changes their relationship and Considine softens his character thereafter. Hounsou is perfect in the role that could have been the film's most cliched pitfall, mixing dignity with amused warmth. And the Bolger sisters make the film. Sarah has a steady wisdom and strength. Her belief in the power of her own will causes her to snap at dad 'Don't you little girl me - I've been carrying this family on my back for a year now!' and the wonder is, she and Considine pull the scene off without a laugh. Her performance of 'Desperado' at a school pageant bears the melancholy weight of her knowledge. Younger sister Emma is natural effervescence, an unassuming charmer and catcher of hearts.
"In America" is a terrific immigrant saga so well told that its few cliches never feel manipulative. It's got the soul of an Irish poet.
B+
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