Review

Review Date: 4-January-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

In America (2003)

I love cities at night. The skylines, brilliantly lit, hint at a million and one fascinating stories just out of sight but waiting to be told, countless lives bumping against each other with any number of amazing outcomes. Even though I know that many of the lives and stories are dull or inane (or involve something I don't want to know about), the view still magically conveys the potential for human experience that lies beneath the dazzling trappings of our intellect and ambition. This is how Jim Sheridan's film "In America" casts its spell: it reaches into the heart of a city, takes hold of one of its stories, and brings it forward into the light, with magic still intact.

The movie isn't exactly the coming-to-America saga that one might expect from the title. It details the first year in the life of an Irish family that moves to New York looking for opportunity and escape. The parents, Johnny and Sarah (Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton), are game young souls, very much in love, whose principal concern is providing the basic necessities (food, shelter, laughter) for their two beautiful daughters (Sarah and Emma Bolger). While working through the usual immigrant woes such as poverty and alienation, they keep bumping up against the haunting trauma of having lost a son. Healing this wound proves to be their biggest challenge.

In someone else's hands, "In America" might have become an overly melodramatic affair (as it is, it requires several tissues), but Sheridan relates the tale with winning conviction and eloquence --- as well he should, for it is largely his own story, which he wrote for the screen with daughters Naomi and Kirsten. Within the first ten minutes, a sense of possibility has taken hold, and his subjects have been established as compelling people whose happiness should be rooted for. This interest emerges through brisk camera work and a lively soundtrack, but it develops as the film progresses through the magnetism of the actors, especially the sensational Considine and little Emma Bolger, who is an absolute delight. Every bit of joy and sorrow experienced by this family hits home (and they have plenty of both); in their charmingly seedy tenement we witness all sorts of ends and beginnings, and acts of love and frustration, which seem somehow to matter for all of us.

The universal alchemy of youth and affection that permeates the movie is somewhat clumsily matched by an element of individual power in the character of Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), a mysterious downstairs neighbor whom the girls befriend on Halloween. In his desperate but sincere admiration for all that Johnny and Sarah possess, he reflects their own best instincts (and those of the audience), willing them to recognize and embrace the beauty they have created and must continue to nurture. When, at the end, his will turns to force, the story gets a little too enamored of its own delirious enchantment; but by that point it's far too late to stop caring.

"In America" is a personal history told with the warmth and enthusiasm that make any narrative accessible. Certainly, the Sheridans are trying to yank our emotional chains, but it's hard not to give in to people wearing their hearts on their sleeves.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.