I Am Sam

Rating

Director

Jessie Nelson

Screenplay

Kristine Johnson, Jessie Nelson

Length

2h 12m

Starring

Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dakota Fanning, Dianne Wiest, Loretta Devine, Richard Schiff, Laura Dern, Brad Allan Silverman, Joseph Rosenberg, Stanley DeSantis, Doug Hutchison, Rosalind Chao, Ken Jenkins, Wendy Phillips, Mason Lucero, Scott Paulin, Bobby Cooper, Kit McDonough, Kimberly Scott

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
When a mentally handicapped coffee shop janitor has a child with a woman who leaves him to raise the child alone, a custody battle ensues over whether he is able to care for a child with a mental capacity higher than his own.

Sean Penn plays Sam Dawson, the beleaguered father who gets involved with a woman who swears she does not want to have a child. When the child is born, she abandons him on the sidewalk outside the hospital as the two are about to get on the city bus. He spends the next seven years caring for Lucy (Dakota Fanning), who gets her name from the Beetles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Trouble soon follows Sam as he mistakenly agrees to accompany a hooker back to her room and is arrested for soliciting a prostitute. The Division of Family Services arrives, but does not immediately take any action. However, trouble at Lucy’s eighth birthday party brings them back, as accusations fly about Sam’s behaviour, and the government steps in and takes custody of Lucy.

To refute these allegations and win his daughter back, Sam goes to a high-priced lawyer, Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), who, after a great deal of pestering by Sam and derision on the part of her peers, agrees to take the case pro bono.

Penn is a talented actor and has given many memorable performances; I Am Sam gives him the opportunity to play a mentally challenged parent who must deal with joy and sorrow in equal proportion. The potential of the portrayal is limited by the stereotyping that that seems inevitable. Penn does the best he can, but comes off manipulative.

Pfeiffer is equally manipulative and plays the stereotypical scatterbrained lawyer who turns out to have a heart of gold. Fanning provides the only truly nuanced performance in the film. She is sweet, intelligent and especially genuine, a most difficult task for child actors.

The screenplay by Kristine Johnson and Jessie Nelson, who also acts as director, is filled with predictable conclusions, two-dimensional characters and blatant emotional manipulation. If it not for the talent of the cast, this movie would have been just as effective as a television movie of the week.

Movies like I Am Sam are as common as a cold and equally unpleasant. While the film has moments that are inspiring, it also has scenes that make you feel emotionally controlled. Audiences will either fall for the false sensitivity or feel cheated by it.

Review Written

June 27, 2002