Sean Penn (Sam Dawson) performs exceptionally strongly as the mentally-challenged father of Lucy (Dakota Fanning.) Young Fanning seems to have a bright future ahead of her. Aside from being an absolutely adorable angel on-screen, she has a precocious feel for acting and displays an impressive range of emotions at such a tender age.
"I Am Sam" is very successful at taking you on an emotional roller coaster-humorous, touching, tragic, triumphant. You'll laugh. Deeper souls (like myself) will also cry.
I did think that the story was a little too detailed and deliberate than necessary to get to the final resolution. It almost seemed that the story was extended intentionally to meet some artificial quota for movie length. Some scenes could have been compressed or eliminated altogether, and it wouldn't have detracted from the overall result. I also found the metaphorical "camera-bounce" to be annoying. It's fairly obvious that it represented Sam's chaos and confusion, but it reminded me too much of amateur home movies. Did I forget to mention the shameless promotion for Starbucks? |
