Review of I Am Sam (2014) by Brendan C — 31 Jan 2013

This was an incredibly emotional movie that might have been the most amazing performance Sean Penn ever gave in his career. He plays a mentally handicapped man named Sam. Sam loves the Beatles, and the entire soundtrack is Beatles songs.

It reminded me of Across the Universe at times. It also has a few Kramer vs. Kramer references in it. He also loves IHOP. The film does references several things like those. He has a daughter played by Dakota Fanning when she was little named Lucy after the song Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds.

The mother of the child runs away leaving Sam to raise Lucy by himself. He makes a living by working at Starbucks for $8.00 an hour. He has the intellectual capacity of a 7 year old, and they are worried that he wont be able to take care of her when she turns 8, because she will be smarter then him at that age.

When an incident goes down at Lucy's 7th birthday party, Sam gets arrested. He is released but has to go to court to see if he is eligible to take care of his daughter. Which creates a lot of emotion.

It gets tough to watch at times, because it is sad. You get a wide range of emotions actually. You feel all emotions pretty much. There is a lot of warmth, but there is so much heartbreak. There are about two different scenes where you may shed a tear.

I wont tell you them though. Sean Penn's acting is amazing, and it is one many roles he has had where you sat there thinking "That's Sean Penn, o my god." You think that because of how much he changes his personality for it.

He is everything everybody will tell you he is in this movie. Michelle Pfeiffer doesn't get enough credit for her performance in this. It was by far her best. I didn't like her at all in Scarface, but she is fantastic in this.

She didn't have the type of role that Sean Penn had, but she still played a really tough role. She played his lawyer, and did his case pro bono. She has tons of personal issues, and you can see that with her when you see how she acts.

She always seems so frustrated with everybody, and everything. Also nothing ever goes her way. Her case really helps her personally, which you will notice at the end of the film. This film did introduce us to Dakota Fanning.

She was really little when she did this, but she did pull of some tough emotional acting. This is just all around a really well acted film. Sam also has many friends that have the same disability that he has, and I am not sure if the are like that in real life or not, but if they aren't they are great actors.

You will see how everybody loves Sam, because he is a sweet man, and it is hard to not like him. You can tell all of his neighbors, and co-workers at Starbucks love him. His daughter Lucy is very close to him, and they have a really nice relationship.

It is interesting to see because she is smarter then he is, so she almost like the parent. A lot of times you can see how she is more competent then Sam. When the film is over you wonder what it will be like when she is a teenager.