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Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 |
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In America is hardly paved with cheese
LESLIE BRIDGERS
STAFF WRITER
This week, the Eveningstar Cinema once again delivers a thought-provoking, character-driven tale that can be watched from comfy couches with Jim Sheridan's In America.
The story follows an Irish family immigrating to the States. From the beginning of the film, as the Sullivans illegally cross the Canadian border, each family member's role is immediately evident. Six-year-old Ariel (Emma Bolger) excitedly pipes up as the border patrol approaches the car, while her ten-year-old sister Christy (Sarah Bolger) slumps in her seat, refusing to communicate with anyone but her camcorder. Their father, Johnny (Paddy Considine), anxiously answers the patroller's questions but foibles when asked how many children he has.
"Three," Johnny says.
"Two," his wife, Sarah (Samantha Morton), corrects him.
And here we are introduced to the fifth Sullivan and catalyst for the story. Frankie, whose childhood death tore up the hearts of his parents and sisters, consequently ripped the Sullivan family apart. Together, the foursome smiles at songs on the radio, rejoices at the sight of hectic Manhattan, and acclimates to both the stuffy heat of the city and the American oddities that surround them, from trick-or-treating to transvestites. But problems deeper than culture shock remain.
Throughout the film, each Sullivan, at a different time and in a different manner, is struck by the loss of young Frankie and is faced head-on with the wreckage that his absence has created. Sarah tries to be a strong maternal figure for her two remaining daughters and a supportive wife for her devastated husband, but, not surprisingly, behind this tough exterior is a woman who is frail and distressed with no apparent outlet. Though Sarah has a few outbursts and is obviously troubled by the prospect and implications of having a new baby (she becomes pregnant again during the film), it is her husband that, along with Frankie's death, truly lost part of himself.
While Sarah, a teacher by trade, works at an ice cream parlor called Heaven (aptly named, as God is a prevalent theme throughout the film), Johnny, who came to New York to be an actor, loses part after part due to what seems to be a lack of heart in his performances.
But Johnny's spirit is not only lost in his auditions. His whole life is hollow; he feels like a "ghost." The formerly fun-loving father has become an irritable atheist, incapable of crying. He cannot deny this dramatic change of character and its detrimental effects on his family when, in one of the most poignant moments of the movie, young Ariel looks at Johnny in fear and disgust and asks for her real father back.
Besides offering their continuous charm to the screen, Ariel and the somewhat cynical Christy, who adds intermittent narration throughout the film, prove to be true tiny heroines. They befriend their reclusive neighbor, known at first as "the man who screams," but who soon becomes the warm-hearted artist Mateo (Djimon Hounsou). The spiritual man, who is dying of AIDS, brings hope and inspiration to their lives, and the Sullivans bring companionship and love to his.
With Mateo's help, the young sisters try to teach their parents to do as they did-to remember Frankie, but to let him go. Though this ultimate plotline could be conceived as somewhat clich‚, director Jim Sheridan, who added bits of his own autobiography into the film, makes it real.
Through a sometimes slow and disjointed scene flow, the use of Christy's camcorder as a cinematic device, and the honest performances of the precocious Bolger sisters, the movie seems like a documentary at times, which works perfectly with the plot. In America is by no means a flawless creation, but is somehow all the better for it.
3.25 polar bears out of 4
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