Review of I Am Sam (2014) by Alex B — 08 May 2017

I thought that this was a very heartfelt movie. Dakota Fanning was so damn cute and Sean Penn and all of his friends with intellectual disabilities sold their roles to me. The scene where they bought her the shoes was both whimsical and so touching! I loved all of the movie references and of course stories about The Beatles too. And shout out to The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the Sweet Tranvestite reference.

Nowadays, the events in this movie are unlikely to take effect due to all of the government programs available to help those who not only are living in poverty but also have some sort of intellectual disabilities. Not to mention the fact that the courts do tend to strongly favor a child going back to their biological parents rather than a foster home even when the situation is much worse than what the film shows.

The parts that really hit home for me were when Lucy told her dad that he "wasn't like other daddy's", or when she was pretending to not be able to read the harder words to not her her daddy's feelings, or when the court tried to explain to Sam that he would have limited and monitored visitations with his daughter, and lastly, when Sam told Randy that he wanted to tell her a secret. The secret, of course, being that he couldn't raise Lucy on his own and thought that the red in Lucy's painting was of Randy. The emotions displayed in these scenes... were wait for it.... OSCAR WORTHY! And I damn near cried.

Lucy: "I don't want to read it if you can't.".

Sam: "It makes me happy when you're reading.".

A very beautiful movie with a great message: All you need is love! With the lack of quality dads in this world, a lot of people would be lucky to have someone like Sam. Somebody that loves their child with their entire being and makes their little angel into their whole world. It's a typical Hollywood drama so you'll love it or you'll hate it. But can we all agree that Dakota Fanning was one of the most precious little girls ever?! She's so adorable!