Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p15

10/01/2014 06:11 par tellurikwaves

One of the most authentically felt films I've ever seen.

Author: RealScience from Los Angeles, CA
21 November 2003

I'm not really big on this kind of film, but this one won me over in a big way. Jim Sheridan has such a sure hand as a director that even as the story meanders along, and you're not quite sure where things are going, you know HE knows and you end up trusting him and going along for whatever ride he wants to take you on. The characters and the actors portraying them are so winning, you don't want the movie to end. You just want to stay with them forever.

Every role, right down to the two border guards and the hospital administrator are perfectly cast and performed. The two sisters playing the daughters are amazing. But the acting in the film really belongs to Samantha Morton. It really is a high wire act. In lesser hands this character might have been completely unbelievable. But her love for her husband and children is so palpable, you completely buy everything she has to go through with them.There were so many chances for cheap sentiment here, but the movie never went there. Really beautiful.

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p14

10/01/2014 06:09 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p13

09/01/2014 18:35 par tellurikwaves

Beautiful

Author: meritt
25 October 2004

I love this little film. I was pregnant at the time when I saw it with my husband who is from Ireland. We both enjoyed the film for it's romance, it's humanity, and qualities that were so earthy and yet somehow ethereal. It was both beautiful and moving--one of those rare finds that illuminates, truth, beauty, and the honesty that art can evoke.

Art--especially the theater and cinema has the power to inspire and can be so powerful. This film is living proof of that. The film has an integrity and a quality of strength that few films ever capture. It is my dream to both create and perform in little films like this. I want to inspire and create something that makes a spiritual leap--something that lasts and endures for all time because of its quality of a diamond in the rough. If you want to see something a bit unusual, though provoking, emotional, and rare--see this film.

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p12

09/01/2014 18:32 par tellurikwaves

Breathtaking In America.

Author: GazTruman from United Kingdom
30 December 2007

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This film has probably the best acting I've seen in a long time! Each of the family of 4 play their roles perfectly to deliver a gripping, breathtaking and heartwarming film.The film shows the struggles of a poor family dealing with the loss of their son/brother. Showing the struggles of money has been seen in many films before, recently "The pursuit of happiness". I think this film delivers it in an accurate way without becoming a sob story.

One of the best scenes in the film is when the family are at the fairground, one of the girls asks for an E.T teddy which can be won on one of the stalls. This scene is gripping as the father tries to win the E.T teddy for his youngest daughter, you can see the pain going through the fathers face as he tries to prove himself to his daughter as the dollars are rushing away from him. It makes quite simply brilliant viewing.

I also thought it was great to see the father show his lack of faith in God since losing his son. When the two daughters ask him to kneel and pray, and he refuses. You can see just how much he has lost his faith in God, a great scene.The connection between the father and eldest daughter during the final scene was excellently heartwarming, it showed everything the film was all about in one powerful scene. Pure genius! 9/10 Paddy Considine is one of the best actors i have seen on film this year, with "In America" and "Dead Mans Shoes". I simply great actor.

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p11

09/01/2014 18:29 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p10

09/01/2014 18:27 par tellurikwaves

Roger Ebert (fin)

It is a very hot summer in New York, the apartment is sweltering, and there is a sequence involving the purchase of a cheap air-conditioner that is handled perfectly: We see a father trying to provide for his family and finding shame, in his own eyes, because he does not do as well as he wants to.The film is also about the stupid things we do because we are human and flawed. Consider the scene at the street carnival, where Johnny gets involved in a "game of skill," throwing balls at a target, hoping to win a prize for his daughters. The film knows exactly how we try to dig ourselves out and only dig ourselves deeper.

The mother is played by Samantha Morton, who in film after film (as the mute in "Sweet and Lowdown" and one of the psychics in "Minority Report"), reveals the power of her silences, her quiet, her presence. The two young girls are played by real sisters, Sarah and Emma Bolger, who are sounding boards and unforgiving judges as the family's troubles grow. "Don't 'little girl' me," Sarah says. "I've been carrying this family on my back for over a year."

Paddy Considine is new to me; I saw him in "24-Hour Party People," I guess, but here he makes an impression: He plays Johnny as determined, insecure, easily wounded, a man who wants to be an actor but fears his spirit has been broken by the death of his son. Djimon Hounsou, given his first big role by Spielberg in "Amistad," often plays strong and uncomplicated types (as in "Gladiator"). Here, as an artist despairing for his art and his future, he reveals true and deep gifts.

From Ireland and Nigeria, from China, the Philippines, Poland, India, Mexico and Vietnam, we get the best and the brightest. I am astonished by the will and faith of the recent immigrants I meet. Think what it takes to leave home, family and even language, to try for a better life in another country. "In America" is not unsentimental about its new arrivals (the movie has a warm heart and frankly wants to move us), but it is perceptive about the countless ways in which it is hard to be poor and a stranger in a new land.

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p9

09/01/2014 18:24 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p8

09/01/2014 18:22 par tellurikwaves

La critique de Roger Ebert (1)
November 26, 2003 

"In America" has a moment when everything shifts, when two characters face each other in anger, and there is an unexpected insight into the nature of their relationship. It is a moment sudden and true; we realize how sluggish many movies are in making their points, and how quickly life can blindside us.

The moment takes place between Johnny (Paddy Considine), the father of an Irish immigrant family recently arrived in New York City, and Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), the angry Nigerian painter who lives below them in a shabby tenement. Mateo is known as "the man who screams" because his anguish sometimes echoes up the stairs. But when Johnny's young daughters knock on his door for trick-or-treating, he is unexpectedly gentle with them.

Johnny's wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) invites Mateo to diner, he becomes friendly with the family during a time when Paddy is feeling hard-pressed and inadequate, and slowly Paddy begins to suspect that romantic feelings are developing between his wife and the man downstairs.All of that grows slowly in the movie, in the midst of other events, some funny, some sad, all rich with life. It is a suspicion rustling beneath the surface, in Johnny's mind and ours. Finally, Johnny confronts Mateo:

"Do you want to be in my place?"

"I might," says Mateo.

"Do you love my wife?"

"I love your wife. And I love you. And I love your children," Mateo says, barking the words ferociously.

There is a silence, during which Johnny's understanding of the situation changes entirely. I will not reveal what he believes he has discovered (it may not be what you are thinking). The rest of the film will be guided by that moment, and what impressed me was the way the dialogue uses the techniques of short fiction to trigger the emotional shift. This is not a "surprise" in the sense of a plot twist, but a different way of seeing. It's the kind of shift you find in the sudden insight of the young husband at the end of Joyce's "The Dead." It's not about plot at all. It's about how you look at someone and realize you have never really known them.

The screenplay is by Jim Sheridan, the director, and his daughters Naomi and Kirsten. It is dedicated "to Frankie," and in the movie the family has two young daughters, and there was a son named Frankie who died of a brain tumor after a fall down the stairs. "In America" is not literally autobiographical (the real Frankie was Sheridan's brother, who died at 10), but it is intensely personal. It's not the typical story of turn-of-the-century immigrants facing prejudice and struggle, but a modern story, set in the 80s and involving new sets of problems, such as racism and the drug addiction in the building and the neighborhood. It is also about the way poverty humiliates those who have always prided themselves on being able to cope.

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p7

09/01/2014 18:19 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-IN AMERICA de Jim Sheridan (2002) p6

09/01/2014 12:57 par tellurikwaves

La critique de James Berardinelli (fin)

The acting is uniformly superb. As the parents, Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton strike the right chords as a loving father and mother attempting to deal with their own grief while trying to shield their surviving children from the core of their pain and sporadic despair. The Bolger sisters, Sarah and Emma, are natural performers, capturing our sympathy from the beginning with their flawless, unaffected work. The film's most emotionally true moment occurs when Christie admits that no one seems to recognize she lost something precious when her brother died.

In many ways, it's a pleasure to encounter a motion picture about immigration that doesn't have an overt political agenda. While there's a place for that sort of movie, there's also a place for something like In America, which focuses on characters and their interaction, and doesn't leave the viewer floundering in a whirlpool of unrelieved depression. Sheridan's overall approach is cautiously optimistic, and, as a result, In America turns out to be uplifting, even though the sensitive viewer will find many opportunities to shed tears.

© 2003 James Berardinelli