In America (2003)

Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I'm not much of a fan of this kind of movie, but this one got me in a fantastic way. It was really heart touching and won some tears from me. I had already seen the film and yet I surrendered to the message it passes. It is incredible how the human being manages to gather in little more than an hour and a half, teachings for the whole life. The part that touched me most, throughout the film, was when Mateo died and the baby was born. That moment was special and made me meditate on life and it's meaning.

In America's legacy has made it become one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 2000s. Well-known film critic Richard Roeper called it the best of 2003, second best of the decade (only behind The Departed, which was actually a worthy #1), and a timeless work of art equal to Frank Capra. Really? Geez! It was great but certainly not THAT great! I do have some problems with believability and pointers that would have made the movie better. But nonetheless, what the movie has is a terrific immigration drama that everybody will cherish.The movie takes place in 1982 where a poor family moves to Hells Kitchen from Ireland in search of a better life. I guess that the Cold War drove them out and they chose New York for opportunity, but why not elsewhere in the state of New York or Canada? Oh well. The family is still mourning the death of their 5-year-old son Frankie, but the older of the children (played by the real life sisters) prays to Frankie for 3 wishes and will only use them up for special and much-needed times. They move to the ghetto part of Hells Kitchen where they must do all they can to make ends meet.There are some really great moments that will make you melt. The first happens when they go to a carnival and the dad plays a ball-throwing game to win a stuffed doll of ET. ET is a reoccurring motif since he is an alien and the movie is about aliens in America. The dad is willing to give up all their money for that doll. But it is not just about the doll, the scene has so much to offer. A few scenes are almost this strong, but the intention was to make the audience feel as proud as the characters. Director Jim Sheridan succeeds in doing that.Here is my criticism. The family just lost their youngest child, they're dirt-poor, and must adjust to living in a new land unfamiliar to them. I know that the family tries to keep it all together, but they seemed way to calm to hold so much grief in. I have experienced loss, so its not like I don't know what I'm talking about. Losing a loved one (especially children) and money problems are the two hugest factors that break a family apart. There are brief outbursts at the end, but that is where they should have subsided. We see the family struggling, but them getting by so easily wasn't anything huge.My next bit I found wrong was that there didn't seem to be much moments of true victories that could REALLY get the audience glowing. The dad winning the ET doll and a scene near the end are it in terms of true victories. Most of the times the family overcomes an obstacle just puts a little smile on the viewer's face, not a starstruck smile that "Rocky" or "It's a Wonderful Life" did. The reason the ET scene worked so well was because so much was on the line and we saw him failing and the stakes getting higher and higher. I know that a poor immigrant family holds all on the line, but them getting over it all just seemed too easy for me to get the same reaction from other people. So these two flaws effected the whole movie and prevented me from giving it a perfect score. I know that I just spent most of the time giving it flack, but the movie does have strong suits too. The parents are admirable and the girls are adorable. The girls are what really carry this movie. The whole point of this movie is love these characters and be proud of them. The movie focuses mainly on their ups and how they cope with things that most other families would be torn apart from. The girls believe in magic, and magic is a motif that is played about perfectly. And frankly, "magic" is the best word for this film.

So I've got this thing that I do. If I see a film's coming on, I'm not sure if I want to see it, I'll record it. When I watch it I'll give it 15 minutes. If it hasn't given me anything in 15 minutes, no matter the rave reviews and rants, out it goes.So I recorded IN America. At the 15 minute mark my thumb hoovered dangerously over the delete button. I wasn't sure. Maybe there was something there. I couldn't decide. Alright, I decided. I'll renew my 15 minute mark.Around minute 30 I still wasn't completely certain. I paused the film. Delete? Watch? Ah nuts, maybe 15 more minutes.By the 45 minute mark I realized what was happening. The movie was a constricting serpent. In those 45 minutes it had slowly coiled around my legs and was working its way up my torso. No sense fighting it now.By the film's end it had done its trick. It squeezed all of the skepticism and reluctance out of me. They came oozing out of my tear ducts. I went from casual reluctance to realizing that I just found one of my all time favorite movies.If you don't cry by the end of the movie schedule a doctor's appointment. Ask him to check you for a pulse.

This movie is about many things. The main plot line is family pain and struggle.What makes this movie great though is its portrayal of mental health and its "solutions". One is just reaching out to a hermit. The beauty and power of children to accomplish this.The power of that message is in this song. Sarah Bolger has an absolutely incredibly fantastic and beautiful singing voice, and the song's punchline is "let somebody love you before its too late"That message applies to her character's parents, and the more obviously sad character in the film.