‘You think you’ve got the market cornered on human suffering?’
Hmmm. Whenever there is a disconnect between audiences and critics, I tend to side with the former. For me, when watching a film, all I really care about are two things. Was I entertained? Did it make feel something? The more technical side of filmmaking is something I admire more than actively enjoy. I Am Sam is one of those rare films adored by audiences but loathed by critics, and this time, I think the critics might be right…
Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) is a mentally disabled man with the mental age of a 7-year-old who, in an unlikely series of events, ends up as a single father to Lucy (Dakota Fanning). When the court system correctly removes her from his care, ferocious lawyer Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer) agrees to take on Sam’s case pro bono.
I will start by saying the premise simply doesn’t hold water. Being mentally disabled needn’t be a barrier to parenthood, but it absolutely should be a barrier for the fictitious character created for this movie. This man clearly isn’t capable of caring for his daughter full time and this renders the whole thrust of the movie irrelevant. Then there is Penn’s performance. As with all roles of this type, it is a well intentioned misstep at best and a cynical bid for awards and plaudits at worst. I’m certainly no advocate for cancel culture or for sanitised cinema, but this film couldn’t possibly be made now, and this is the right thing. Sam is presented as a kind of Forrest Gump character, but inhabiting a movie world that is very different to the one presented in that film. It just doesn’t work. The supporting cast fare better, particularly Pfeiffer and Fanning, and indeed, the whole film would be a complete dud without their assured performances, but it’s not enough to save a project that should never have made it to the screen in the first place.
Aside from the confused performances and the borderline insulting messaging, Jessie Nelson’s direction is just plain bad – the cinematography and editing are all over the place and at 132 punishing minutes, it is way too long, and by the end, I literally couldn’t wait for it to finish. It’s no surprise that Nelson’s career pretty much ground to a halt the moment that filming wrapped on this piece of shit.
By the saccharine conclusion, what should be a touching and poignant denouement just feels schmaltzy and sentimental, not helped by a series of uninspired Beatles covers, and it’s fitting that this film has become completely forgotten in the intervening years. Put simply, a bad movie.