Rating: 
Summary: All about the Bolger sisters (and Samantha Morton)
Review: 'In America' is a quasi-autobiographical work penned by director Jim Sheridan and daughters Naomi and Kirsten (herself a director). I added "quasi" because a little research turns up that Jim Sheridan had a brother Frankie who passed away in tragic circumstances (I'm not giving anything away by telling you that). That character woven into the 'In America' story in conjunction with the story that is obviously the current Sheridan family's own: Irish mother and father with two young girls in tow trying to make it as immigrants in a hardscrabble NYC neighborhood in the early eighties.Real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger play what are obviously the on-screen portrayals of Sheridan siblings Kirsten and Naomi. Emma - playing younger sister Ariel - is adorable right from the get go. Older sister Sarah is the mature, world-weary (but still sweet) Christy. When she tells her father "I've been carrying this family on my back for over a year," believe it. And don't miss her stark, beautiful rendering of 'Desperado.' Perfect. In case you can't tell, I was enchanted by these two girls. But Samantha Morton is a treat, too. She was wonderful but obscured as the pre-cog in the fine Cruise/Spielberg film 'Minority Report.' Here, she's front and center and luminous.
Rating:
Summary: great storytelling
Review: a poigant look at an immigrant families struggle to get over the death of their child. this was a great film from start to finish. well-acted, well told.
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Summary: Awesome!
Review: This movie is great. Don't waste your money seeing Cold Mountain - this movie actually evokes emotions!!
Rating: 
Summary: A flawed fable
Review: Yes, the movie "tugs at your heart" and I will allow that there are certain situations that must ring true for recent immigrants to America. But it is a fable crippled by too many silly conceits that ruin the film. For example: No one in their right mind would permit 2 little girls to wander outside that neighborhood in NYC in the evening so the parents can boink without being bothered by their little angels. And only an uncaring parent would stand by and let 2 little girls enter the apartment of an apparent maniac. I felt like calling Child Protective Services from my seat in the theater when this egregious parental behavior was allowed to occur without consequence. Maybe little Frankie really wouldn't have fallen down those stairs with competent parents. Is there a pattern here? Mateo reminded me of the principal character in "The Green Mile." So pure, so misunderstood. An unfortunate portrayal of a black man - presented in the film as a rare exception to the rule that most black people who look like him really are terrible. Who ever heard of a 10 year year old girl having to give a donation of 0 negative blood to save her infant sister? Yes, there may be a case here and there where a bone marrow transplant from a minor could be necessary to save a life, and that might be a worthy subject to explore in another movie. A transfusion of 0 negative blood from a child donor should not be allowed to happen because the mother was afraid the newborn recipient might otherwise receive "tainted blood." This is an unsustainable concept in real life and is silly as portrayed in the movie. Those problems aside, the vignette added nothing to the central themes of the movie. And of course these people seemed to arrive illegally from Canada - joining the great power blackout of '03 (according to some people), mad cow disease and the cold snap of '04 as imports from our hapless northern neighbor. Canada was blamed enough in "South Park."
Rating: 
Summary: A Time To Heal
Review: "In America" is Jim Sheridan's semi-autobiographical film of an Irish family who emigrate to America, partly to forget the pain of the loss of their young son. This is an unforgettable film that touches the heart and demostrates the power of love to heal. Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine are wonderful as the mon and dad who bravely struggle to raise their two adorable young daughters in their run-down tenement apartment in New York. There they meet a lonely, brooding and bitter artist from Africa, Mateo, who is dying of AIDS. Almost magically, Mateo changes theirs and his own life in unexpected ways. Although I feel that Sheridan sometimes tries a little too hard to tug at the heart strings, "In America" is a loving and touching film that will truly move you.
Rating:
Summary: An Exquisite Film in every aspect
Review: IN AMERICA has heart, extraordinary writing, superb acting, admirable cinematography by Declan Quinn, and, in short, everything that "small films" attempt for, in abundance. Based on autobiographical material this screenplay was written by Jim Sheridan (who also directs with great sensitivity) and his two daughters. The story is that of an Irish family - a man and wife and thier two daughters - who swallow their recent loss of their only son and emigrate from Canada to America. The story is related through the tender eyes of the older daughter, who in the manner Irish holds three wishes bestowed by her brother's death. How she uses those wishes in the Americanization of the Sullivan family forms the story line. Against all the odds that so often impale immigrants to this country - inability to find decent housing, work, friends etc - this warm family's plight is magnified by the fact that they must learn to exist in a sleazy tenement building. Father is a wannabe actor who ends up driving a cab at night, the girls struggle with the new way of language and living, and the mother longs for another pregnancy to help fill the void of her lost child. They are befriended (mutually) by an African artist who lives below them and who eventually becomes a significant part of their extended family. To tell more would be unfair, as it is the tragedy and how it turns that makes the movie glow. Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine as the parents are as fine as actors can get. The daughters are played with impeccable grace and skill by Sarah and Emma Bolger, and Mateo (their new fried) is the creation of the beautiful actor Djimon Hounsou who shines in this pivotal role. This story is related with underplayed sensitivity and heartwarming tenderness. Rarely has a film found an audience that is almost uniformly moved to quiet tears during the credits. Would that there could be more honest, thoughtful, touching films like IN AMERICA to tend to the bruised psyches of us all. Kudos to Jim Sheridan and his enormously gifted cast and crew - and to his courage to pursue this project.
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Summary: Re-birth in America
Review: The film opens with the narration by Christy (Sarah Bolger), talking of her family's desire to start over in America. Her father, Johnny (Paddy Considine) is an aspiring actor hoping to find his fortune on stage in New York. He and his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) are also hoping to somehow start a new life together with their daughters Christy and Ariel (Emma Bolger) as they continue to mourn for their son, Frankie. Another important member of the cast is Christy's camcorder, which is almost like a character in of itself. Sarah is the quiet, yet strong center of this Irish family illegally entering the country in pursuit of the American dream, quietly filming documenting the important landmarks and achievements in her family's life. As the family drives from Canada into New York. As they exit the Lincoln tunnel, Johnny is scanning the radio stations and a disc jockey announces that they have the latest hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s... so the film opens up with the assumption that the timeline is current. When they view the New York skyline, the twin towers are conspicuously absent and Christy is using a small digital camcorder. The family sells their rattle-trap of a car to move into a druggie-infested tenement of an apartment house. They are on the 5th floor of a building with no working elevator, and as summer approaches, it is oppressively hot. The family works together to liven up their dank apartment and Johnny starts rehearsing for his auditions. Sarah's sweet smile and overt love for her husband do not reveal the turmoil underneath - a man who has not yet accepted the death of his son and is almost bereft of emotions beyond a kind smile and a nod as he refuses to grieve - as though the refusal would somehow keep Frankie from dying. An angry, lonely African artist lives below them - and he comes out of his shell when he meets Christy and Ariel as they go trick or treating. While he appears to be healthy, a refrigerator full of medicine reveals otherwise. While it is never specifically stated, it is obvious that Mateo (Djimon Hounsou) is suffering from AIDS... but the parents seem oblivious. As the story continues, the viewer starts thinking, "hmmm... maybe this film is taking place in the early 80s?" Sure enough, the parents take their kids to the movies to escape the heat of their apartment to watch "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial." "E.T." came out in 1982 - just months before AIDS was even given a name. Then there are the posters in Times Square, showing young T.V. and film stars of today that were not even alive in 1982... and then there's that pesky digital camcorder which didn't exist back then, either. Personal camcorders were an expensive luxury in 1982 and they were almost as big as Ariel. Christy's whole camcorder is smaller than a VHS tape, which was the only medium for personal use at that time. It would have made much more sense for the girls to have an old beat-up Super 8mm film camera than an apparatus from the future. For those too young to remember, AIDS was to the 1980s what Polio was in the 1940s and 50s. It terrified people. No one really knew how you got it. People were shunned, some were fired and some were attacked. People didn't want to be in the same room with people that AIDS because no one was 100% sure how it was spread and people who had it lived very short lives after their diagnosis. Despite the fear and panic of the rest of civilization, Johnny and Sarah welcome Mateo to their apartment and adopt him into their family. He teaches Christy to paint and helps her to decorate her room and becomes a type of faux older brother for Ariel, who still grieves deeply for Frankie. Although she was told she would never again to be able to bear children, Sarah again becomes pregnant - with complications. Her new daughter will only survive with a blood transfusion from Christy, who proves once again that she is the family's backbone. As the almost lifeless baby begins to open her eyes, we see Mateo closing his eyes for the last time in a Hospice - as though his spirit is somehow helping the new child to breathe... and with the birth of their new child in America, the first signs of true emotion come back to Johnny. The film has beautiful moments and the astounding acting of true-life sisters Sarah & Emma Bolger will blow you away. The film is superbly acted by all and only those with a heart of granite will not have a lump in their throats during some scenes. This notwithstanding, the plot has holes-a-plenty. Not only do we have the time-traveling camcorder from the future, the whole film has almost too much sentimentality to it. It's as if every scene is a glimpse of life to be cherished, much like the moments captured on a movie camera (futuristic or otherwise). The film's intention is to be sentimental, but it goes a little to far to the point of making the whole story improbable. For the acting alone, this is a film worthwhile seeing, but unlike some of its rave reviews, I do not concur that this is the best film of the year - although the emotional roller-coaster ride can make you feel as though you are intimately connected with its characters.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Greatness
Review: One of the best movies if not the best movie I've seen in the last 5 years. I found NO weak point in the movie. Acting is superb. I don't know why it is not in major theaters...hopefully it is a sleeper like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You cannot keep a film like this down.
Rating: 
Summary: a movie of moments
Review: IN AMERICA is the story of an Irish family that moves to New York to escape the memory of a child who has died tragically. The father (Paddy Considine) is an aspiring actor and the mother (the great Samantha Morton) is forced to take a waitressing job as the family can only afford to live in a drug infested Hell's Kitchen tenement. The two young daughters (Sarah and Emma Bolger) rely mostly on each other since the parents both seem to be numbed by grief.
It's a very episodic film, filled with snatches of moments as the family settles in to their new home. Johnny, the father, can't find acting work and takes a job as a cab driver. The kids start a new school where they are inexplicably alienated from all the other students. Things go along, and a pregnancy threatens the health of Morton's character. The circumstances of the child's death, whic hovers over everything, are never explained clearly--references are made to falling down the stairs and to a brain tumor. Most predictably, the family is pulled out of the doldrums by their encounter w/ a neighbor (Djimon Hounsou, in a role so symbolic he should have had "Life Force" written on his clothes) who is dying of AIDS. Of course, he reminds the family what's important. (Hounsou actually performs with great warmth and makes the best of this cliched role).
The movie is constructed so that just when things seem at their worst there's a moment to remind us how great life really is (a snowball fight, a bizarre scene at a street fair)... It ends on an up note, although I'm not sure it's earned. Made with great skill and affection by Jim Sheridan, who directed and cowrote the autiobiographical script with his two daughters. Morton and the kids are good, but Considine can't suggest the necessary degree of inner turmoil. Worth a look ...
Rating:
Summary: Lost In Times Square
Review: Upon making my way to my local theater to see "In America", I was hoping to see an honest rags-to-riches story of one Irish family's struggle to make a good life for themselves in their homeland, and come to America to bask in the splendor of opportunity and wealth. My thoughts couldn't be any further from the truth - for what I saw instead, was a some hour and forty minutes of sheer boredom and falsities of this great country we call America. I kept expecting our "heroes" to pull out of their bastion of poverty, but what I saw instead, was a poorly conceived display of what has to be the most schizoid pretense of acting on the planet. In addition, "In America" is chock-full of ethnic and social stereotypes, to which there are many. This film portrays people of African descent in a negative light, in that it treats them as raving, cannabalistic maniacs, and that's just scratching the surface of this heavily flawed cinematic bombast. It also sees the U.S. as a lazy, unintelligent nation, and also fails to view the positive, humanistic side of our great nation, of which there are numerous facets. Director/writer Jim Sheridan failed to do his homework, therefore missing out in capturing the true American spirit. Also, Sheridan didn't do his own nationalists any favors, either, by insulting this particular Irish family by sticking them in an urbanized New York City ghetto, let alone leaving the children alone with a helpless mother with very little income. Seeing this family's struggle, I couldn't help but sit through the movie, thinking "Is this family stupid, or what?". Better yet, "Were Jim Sheridan and his relatives sniffing toxic fumes (particularly from the chipped paint of the run-down apartment complex) when they concocted the idea for "In America"'s storyline?". Besides the vocal venom spewed by its two main stars, Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton throughout this horrible display of a sad plot and shoddy dramatics, the Sheridans need to burn the master reel, and kiss the famed Blarney Stone, before they return to this country to make another motion picture. Gaining furher undertanding of U.S. culture and customs would advance their cause as well, including a case study of our child labor and care laws in addition. To avoid futher cultural shock and disappointment, I would advise against seeing this indigestible piece of cinematic monstrosity, whether it be here "In America", or anywhere else, regardless. Also, a label should be affixed, saying: WARNING: KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF SMALL (AMERICAN) CHILDREN - due to the toxic material contained within - enough said.
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