Review: In America (**)

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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