I Am Sam

Directed by: Jessie Nelson

Starring: Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianne Wiest, Dakota Fanning

Rating:

Again, I must vent about the Oscars when speaking about this movie. As another critic pointed out, Edward Norton ruined the amazement that audiences have with actors playing mentally disabled characters when he turned it on and off in The Score. He showed just how easy it is.

For that reason and because I thought it was nothing special on top of that, I am baffled as to why Sean Penn is nominated for this movie. Don't get me wrong, and I'm sure my brother will yell at me for bashing Penn, but I'm not. I like him very much as an actor. I love Dead Man Walking and At Close Range, among others. However, this movie really was unimpressive to me and why the Academy decided now was time for him to get an Oscar nod bothers me.

This movie is about a man named Sam who suffers from mental retardation. A woman who needs a place to sleep befriends him and sleeps with him in return for a place to crash. This results in a baby that she doesn't want. She leaves the child with Penn and runs. He takes care of the baby, with the help of his friends including a neighbor, Dianne Wiest. Finally, his daughter, Lucy, is old enough to realize that her father is mentally disabled. Thru a chain of events the authorities step in and try to take her away from Penn. This results in Penn going to Michelle Pfeiffer, a lawyer, for help.

This film is trite and pretentious. The camera movement is erratic. I assume the director was trying to transplant the audience into a sense of confusion, much like Penn's character, but instead all that happened was that I got a headache within the first ten minutes that wouldn't go away.

Michelle Pfeiffer's character is soulless and everything she does is predictable. She's a cookie cut character. It's as though the writer looked up successful female lawyer in some character dictionary and copied word for word. She brings nothing to the screen. Dianne Wiest also has a supporting role. Her character is just kind of random and was put there in order to make it believable that Penn could've raised his daughter on his own. The only good part about the film is the girl who plays Penn's daughter, Dakota Fanning. She is the only light in this ridiculously sad and depressing movie. She is the only one who moved me to tears and she's the only one who's well written.

The overly simplified ending is not enough to make this overall depressing movie happy. All in all I'd say this movie is not worth watching.