i am sam - Sean Penn & Michelle Pfeiffer: 9/10 - a must see.
It doesn't get much better than this IMO. If you want to see a movie about what's important in life, don't miss 'i am sam'. Touching, funny, brilliant, maddening, sad, rapturous. Sean Penn is brilliant as Sam Dawson, an adult father with the mental capacity of a seven year old. He obviously loves his daughter Lucy (played wonderfully by an amazingly mature Dakota Fanning) and she loves him. But with Sam's limitations, a social worker intervenes and the department of family services take Lucy away from Sam and leaves everyone questioning whether love is enough. Everyone except Sam and Lucy. Michelle Pfeiffer is fantastic in her portrayal of Sam's driven, obsessive, manic (and lying!) lawyer, Rita Harrison, "the lawyer who never loses". She's all that's tragic and wonderful about the corporate legal world. The way her high-powered, successful lawyer is juxtaposed against Penn's childlike simplicity highlights that life isn't about talent or intellectual, financial or corporate success. Sam and Lucy show, and Rita (et al) learn, that it's about love, honesty, consistency and slowing down enough and opening up to let people in, to care for one another, and to enjoy life together. The movie keeps you guessing right to the end. I love the camera work although some reviewers on other sites hate it - it is mostly hand held (I don't think they get that it is essentially trying to show the confusion of the world from Sam's view, and that we don't always see life from the view of a perfectly positioned tripod) and the Beatles covers are poignant and relevant. I gave it a 9 instead of a 10 because of its unabashed commercialism (Starbucks, Pizza Hut and IHOP get big wraps - I assume they contributed financially to this relatively low budget movie - 'relatively' given the stars involved) and the ending didn't quite work for me. Other than that, sheer enjoyable brilliance.
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