Based on the purportedly true story of director Jim Sheridan and Family's immigration to Manhattan from Ireland in the early Eighties. I use the adjective "purportedly" because much of *In America* doesn't make any sense. Why does a middle-class Irish family feel the need to sneak into the U.S. from Canada, claiming that they're on holiday? The financial wherewithal and annoying paperwork required to legally immigrate to this country would've posed far less problems to this family than to, say, a family of penniless Mexicans. The entire set-up of this movie is unconvincing.
And thus it continues: out-of-work actor Jimmy (Paddy Considine, looking like late-Eighties Gary Oldman and acting like early-Nineties Tim Roth) manages to move himself and his family into a gigantic loft in a bad part of town that is, apparently, rent-free. Even in early-Eighties New York, an apartment that size would be beyond the conjoined means of a waitress and a cab-driver. Setting this unlikely and unfortunately large point aside, the movie dives into utter fantasy when we see Considine, on foot, dragging a battered old air-conditioner behind him on a busy street, incurring the wrath of on-coming traffic. Apparently he does this because he can't lift the machine over a sidewalk curb . . . and yet we later see him carry the damn thing up several flights of stairs to his apartment. Boy, there's nothing prosaic in *In America*: everything is a Very Big Deal, taken to extremes. Mystery-Man Djimon Hounsou, who lives a flight down from the Sheridans, has painted "KEEP AWAY" in scary lettering on his door while screaming like a madman 24/7 behind that door. But it turns out that he's an artist who takes an instant liking to the Sheridan girls after they bang insistently on his door for Halloween candy. It also turns out that he has a strange disease (AIDS, natch -- this is the early Eighties, remember, when apparently no one knew what to call it) and is "in love" with not only Samantha Morton, but with Considine, their two daughters, and the unborn baby in Morton's womb. Sheesh!
I feel sort of uncomfortable knocking a guy's "true story", but this whole project smacks of personal revisionism. One is not too surprised to learn that Sheridan's daughters co-wrote the screenplay: Our Story, As We Wanted It To Be (Not Necessarily As It Actually Happened). All of us overlay a mythical patina over our childhood memories, but great artists struggle to scrape it away in order to obtain verisimilitude. *In America* reveals a lot about the Sheridans' taste in art-house cinema (e.g., Fellini) and, for that matter, popular cinema (e.g., Spielberg). The movie mimics, homages, and takes the worst from both of those directors. Unfortunately, it reveals very little about what their own lives were really like, I daresay. The period-setting seems ambivalent: it's supposed to be '82 or '83, but I saw a lot of recent car makes on the street, including some anachronistic SUVs. Most of the story occurs in that weird, Fellini-esquire apartment complex, inhabited by artful graffiti and friendly junkie neighbors, and so we can hardly get a grasp of the New York setting (this movie could take place anywhere, which can hardly be the directors' intention). I'm also not sure what Sheridan means by the movie's title: *In America*. This family does not seem any more dislocated than the other New Yorkers on view here, all of whom appear to leading lives of quiet desperation. Perhaps this is Sheridan's point. If so, it minimizes the uniqueness of his family's story -- again, this would seem antithetical to the director's purposes.
The Bolger sisters who play the daughters, however, manage to redeem the movie from utter failure. Their parts seem to have been written from a overly fond, nostalgic point of view: the younger sister is entirely too cute; the older is entirely too wise. But the girls are a delight to watch, anyway. One real moment -- in a movie otherwise stuffed with unreal moments -- occurs when Considine is preparing for an upcoming audition, memorizing a script. The girls, hiding behind a shower curtain, keep sticking their heads out, giggling and pestering him with useless, girlish questions. The scene almost makes the rest of the movie worth watching.
Almost. 3 stars out of 10.
And thus it continues: out-of-work actor Jimmy (Paddy Considine, looking like late-Eighties Gary Oldman and acting like early-Nineties Tim Roth) manages to move himself and his family into a gigantic loft in a bad part of town that is, apparently, rent-free. Even in early-Eighties New York, an apartment that size would be beyond the conjoined means of a waitress and a cab-driver. Setting this unlikely and unfortunately large point aside, the movie dives into utter fantasy when we see Considine, on foot, dragging a battered old air-conditioner behind him on a busy street, incurring the wrath of on-coming traffic. Apparently he does this because he can't lift the machine over a sidewalk curb . . . and yet we later see him carry the damn thing up several flights of stairs to his apartment. Boy, there's nothing prosaic in *In America*: everything is a Very Big Deal, taken to extremes. Mystery-Man Djimon Hounsou, who lives a flight down from the Sheridans, has painted "KEEP AWAY" in scary lettering on his door while screaming like a madman 24/7 behind that door. But it turns out that he's an artist who takes an instant liking to the Sheridan girls after they bang insistently on his door for Halloween candy. It also turns out that he has a strange disease (AIDS, natch -- this is the early Eighties, remember, when apparently no one knew what to call it) and is "in love" with not only Samantha Morton, but with Considine, their two daughters, and the unborn baby in Morton's womb. Sheesh!
I feel sort of uncomfortable knocking a guy's "true story", but this whole project smacks of personal revisionism. One is not too surprised to learn that Sheridan's daughters co-wrote the screenplay: Our Story, As We Wanted It To Be (Not Necessarily As It Actually Happened). All of us overlay a mythical patina over our childhood memories, but great artists struggle to scrape it away in order to obtain verisimilitude. *In America* reveals a lot about the Sheridans' taste in art-house cinema (e.g., Fellini) and, for that matter, popular cinema (e.g., Spielberg). The movie mimics, homages, and takes the worst from both of those directors. Unfortunately, it reveals very little about what their own lives were really like, I daresay. The period-setting seems ambivalent: it's supposed to be '82 or '83, but I saw a lot of recent car makes on the street, including some anachronistic SUVs. Most of the story occurs in that weird, Fellini-esquire apartment complex, inhabited by artful graffiti and friendly junkie neighbors, and so we can hardly get a grasp of the New York setting (this movie could take place anywhere, which can hardly be the directors' intention). I'm also not sure what Sheridan means by the movie's title: *In America*. This family does not seem any more dislocated than the other New Yorkers on view here, all of whom appear to leading lives of quiet desperation. Perhaps this is Sheridan's point. If so, it minimizes the uniqueness of his family's story -- again, this would seem antithetical to the director's purposes.
The Bolger sisters who play the daughters, however, manage to redeem the movie from utter failure. Their parts seem to have been written from a overly fond, nostalgic point of view: the younger sister is entirely too cute; the older is entirely too wise. But the girls are a delight to watch, anyway. One real moment -- in a movie otherwise stuffed with unreal moments -- occurs when Considine is preparing for an upcoming audition, memorizing a script. The girls, hiding behind a shower curtain, keep sticking their heads out, giggling and pestering him with useless, girlish questions. The scene almost makes the rest of the movie worth watching.
Almost. 3 stars out of 10.