UrbanWire

Cast: Samantha Morton, Paddy Considine, Djimon Hounsou
Director: Jim Sheridan

In the multi-Oscar nominated In America, a story of an Irish immigrant family unravels as the audience is taken through their immense hardship to make ends meet and find their place in foreign modern day Manhattan - through it all they face the biggest challenge of holding on to each other.

Seen through the eyes of Christy, the older of 2 sisters, the family's biggest burden is the painful loss of Frankie, the youngest boy and 5th member in the now family of 4. As with Robin Williams-helmed What Dreams May Come, Frankie's death emotionally isolates father and mother - Johnny and Sarah (played by Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton) - from each other, leaving them to hurt on their own. But the greatest weight falls upon Christy who suffers in silence and speaks to her dead brother constantly.

The quiet isolation between the parents forces the children, Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger) into their own personal seclusion that is seen in Christy's conversations with Frankie and her confiding her thoughts and secrets to her camcorder. It is also seen in Ariel's desperation to catch daddy's attention, to be loved and played with, something which daddy no longer does.

It is only until the girls meet their neighbour Mateo (Djimon Hounsou, who is nominated for an Oscar for his supporting actor role) during a trick-or-treating session when they relish a sense of the happiness they had before Frankie's death.

However the pending birth of another child that could cost the life of both Sarah and the baby, and the Mateo slowing losing the battle against an incurable virus throw the family into disarray as they are reminded of how they had slowly lost Frankie to brain tumour.

While Johnny is adamant about not risking Sarah's life for the baby's, Sarah, however, is fighting to keep the baby alive as a parallel to the struggle she had keeping Frankie alive in her life.

The portrayals of Johnny, Sarah, Christy and Ariel are believable and extremely genuine. The depiction of their trials and despair are very real and bring out the underlying message of hope and the eventual realisation that life and death are intertwined.

A scene where Johnny risks the family fortune to play a ball-throwing game at a games fair, in order to win an E.T. plush toy for Ariel, shows the emotional struggle of Johnny - he is desperate to make Ariel happy, and he is emotionally desperate and feels that he has nothing left to lose.

Written, produced and directed by the Jim Sheridan, In America - which is loosely autobiographical - is his 5th and most personal film to date, which he co-wrote with his daughters Naomi and Kirsten. He came to New York a penniless immigrant and at 10, also suffered the devastating loss of his own brother named Frankie.

Samantha Morton who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Sweet and Lowdown (1999) is up for another Oscar for her role as Sarah in the Best Actress category. This is hardly surprising as Morton's portrayal of a quietly distraught mother makes you feel for her being torn apart by the need to grieve over the loss of her son and at the same time the need to go on with her own life and take care of her 2 remaining children.

In America, nominated for an Academy Award for original script, is well paced and keeps the audience in suspense, making room for unexpected twists and turns, allowing viewers to piece together a story of the intense suffering of the living over the loss of the dead. The movie engages the audience in intense emotions few movies successfully capture on film - the tortured grief of those with shelved pain, the silent hurting of numb nothingness, and the slow release of being brought back to life again.