In America Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)November 13th, 2003
IN AMERICA
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
Jim Sheridan's IN AMERICA is a slow story which offers little to reward viewers' patience and one with a serious credibility problem. Starting off as something of a whimsical fairytale about Irish immigrants newly arrived in America, it transforms into a ponderous melodrama.
Almost completely broke, Johnny (Paddy Considine), an unemployed actor, and his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) have just moved into a rundown tenement building in New York City with their two young girls, Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger). In a seedy area teaming with drug dealers and transvestites, the supposedly-caring parents show no apparent concern in sending their kids outside by themselves, day or night, especially when they want to have sex without the kids around.
Johnny is shown as a good dad, who loves nothing better than clowning around with his girls. One night at an amusement park, Johnny risks all of their rent money in order to try to win a cheap E.T. doll for one of his girls. The family's collective remembrance of a dead son, Frankie, who fell down the stairs when he was two, haunts all of their lives.
Djimon Hounsou plays the story's only original and intriguing character, an artist named Mateo who burns with an initially unexplained intensity. He has "Keep Out" painted on his apartment door, and he means. Or, he does until the little girls steal his heart one Halloween.
There's nothing wrong with IN AMERICA, save the completely unbelievable and ridiculous carelessness of the parents towards their kids in an extremely dangerous neighborhood. The problem is that there is little worthwhile to hold our attention.
IN AMERICA runs 1:43. It is rated PG-13 for "some sexuality, drug references, brief violence and language" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.
The film has already opened in Europe. It starts opening in limited release this month in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas starting on Friday, December 12, 2003.
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