What better family movie for the long Fourth of July weekend than a compassionate, moving study of an Irish immigrant family trying to cope with life “In America”?
I’m warning you, Jim Sheridan’s 2002 Academy Award nominee will sneak up on you, then leave you feeling both devastated and uplifted with emotion. Almost no one writes or directs with Sheridan’s impeccable sense of poignancy, where he comes this close to maudlin, but never leaves us stuck there feeling cheap. As Claudia Puig put it in USA Today, “touching, but not cloying” could be an appropriate epigraph for any Sheridan work.
“In America” follows the travails and triumphs of the Sullivan family and its two daughters. They are fleeing both the death of a young son and the father’s faltering acting career.
Their sloppy Hell’s Kitchen apartment building doesn’t look like a promising place to start anew, but Sheridan’s work has always captured a childlike point of view: The failings and eccentricities of adults around you can be threatening or magical, depending on the moment.
And Sheridan (“My Left Foot,” “Into the West”) always anchors his movies in real politics or social causes. The possibly mean, possibly kind neighbor down the hall, Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), has AIDS in the early 1980s, when the disease was still horribly incurable and considered a scourge of some sinful underclass. Adding in these elements lets Sheridan create a signature coming-of-age fairy tale, at once knowing and naive.
I’ve long felt “In America” was the best movie of 2002, and certainly should have beaten one of the “Lord of the Rings” movies for a Best Picture nomination. Sheridan did receive a much-deserved screenplay nomination, as did Samantha Morton as best actress and Hounsou in a supporting role.
“In America”
Rated: PG-13, for a very mild sexual scene, some drug references and language.
Best suited for: Oscar- savvy families with kids 12 or older who can appreciate a plot and deeper emotions.
