peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2010 04 01 InAmerica

In America (2002)

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Jim Sheridan is a master story teller, focussing in tight on a very few characters and showing how things are for them. Clearly this is a deeply personal story. The acting is quite good, the children particularly excellent, Mateo (Djimon Hounsou) electric and beautiful. I remember Samantha Morton for her luminous performance in The Libertine, and here she is grittily competent. I would only quibble about the manufacturing of tension, and the slightly stodgy (Irish?) narrative arc. Immerse yourself and ruminate.