PENN ‘AM SAM’
I AM SAM
Get out your handkerchiefs.
Running time: 130 minutes.Rated PG-13 (mild vulgarity). AtCinema 1, Third Avenue and61st Street.
NOT all the movie wizardry this season is being performed by Gandalf and Harry – consider Sean Penn’s amazing performance as a retarded man in the irresistible tearjerker “I Am Sam.”
Oscar voters certainly will.
The movie is a fairly shameless mating of “Rain Man” and “Kramer vs. Kramer” – which it has the good humor to acknowledge – but it works magic because of Penn, who disappears into the character so thoroughly that even Dustin Hoffman (who won Oscars for the two earlier films) would be jealous.
You quickly forget that Madonna’s ex-husband, who reminds us again he’s one of our finest actors, is playing the mentally challenged Sam, who works cleaning counters at a Los Angeles Starbucks.
Sam’s life is transformed when a homeless woman living with him gives birth to their child – and she promptly takes off, leaving him with a daughter he names after one of his favorite songs, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”
He’s the model of a devoted dad, helped by a support system of four challenged pals and Annie (Dianne Wiest), a neighbor who’s an agoraphobic pianist.
All goes well until Lucy (newcomer Dakota Fanning) approaches her seventh birthday – and the point where her mental and emotional development are surpassing her father’s.
An incident at a birthday party causes a well-meaning social worker (Loretta Devine) to take Lucy away from Sam and place her in a foster home until a judge can decide her fate.
A distraught Sam approaches an expensive lawyer who he and his buddies have selected virtually at random from the phone book.
Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a callous workaholic divorcee who can’t be bothered, but her law-firm colleagues shame her into taking the case on a pro bono basis.
This is the sort of movie that requires a major suspension of disbelief.
Any of us who have spent time in family court will tell you it’s highly unlikely that any judge would tolerate the kind of personal attacks that Rita and Lucy’s court-appointed lawyer (Richard Schiff) constantly make on each other and on professional witnesses.
But Penn makes us take the leap required by Kristine Johnson and Jessie Nelson’s screenplay – you end up deeply caring about Sam and Lucy, who is touchingly played by Fanning without any child-actress mannerisms.
Pfeiffer turns in a fairly stereotyped career-woman portrayal (compare it to Stockard Channing’s in “The Business of Strangers”), but Laura Dern has a nice supporting role as Lucy’s foster mom, who the film refuses to turn into a villain.
“I Am Sam” – which features a plethora of Beatles covers on the soundtrack and takes its title from Dr. Seuss – has its heart in the right place.
