Heart-wrenching chick flick (From Western Telegraph)

Heart-wrenching chick flick

I AM SAM

Starring Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer Directed by Jessie Nelson (Cert. PG, Dur. 132 min)

Imagine a film that has this brief storyline: A middle-aged woman is dumped by her husband in favour of a younger model. She sells up and moves far away from her old life with her angry, punk, teenage daughter in tow. She meets an old female school friend and that friends female love interest, and together they all start a small business. And all find love. until one of them gets an incurable disease. Tagline: Pain hurts until it stops but friendship never ends.

Every man reading this is either already at the hills or at least putting his coat on with his mind on downing a beer and talking rugby. Fear not. That is not a real movie. But it illustrates what is universally known as a chick flick. (First and final apology: I know some blokes like the movie Steel Magnolias and I know some girls love Terminator).

So the untitled movie above is a chick flick. And I neednt go into such detail to describe an extreme example of a blokes movie. Certainly it would have guns and car chases. Now, I bother to go into this, because this week sees the release of a film called I am Sam, which I hated despite its obvious quality.

I am Sam stars the brilliant Sean Penn as Sam Dawson, a man with the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. He works at a Starbucks and is obsessed with The Beatles. He is excessively kind and loving and somehow, in a way only slightly explained, and then awkwardly, he has a daughter with a homeless woman. The woman immediately abandons them leaving him to care for the daughter, Lucy Diamond, alone. Almost plausibly this arrangement works until the extremely smart daughter reaches seven herself, and the authorities realise that she is holding her self back at school in order to avoid becoming smarter than her father.

She also becomes old enough to feel embarrassed at the way he behaves. Subsequently she is taken away but Sam manages to get a high powered lawyer, Michelle Pfeiffer, to help him for free. The ending Ill leave for your enjoyment but they all learn that love is all you need, and other Beatles songs!

The little girl, Dakota Fanning, is outstanding. Michelle Pfeiffer is a cartoon as the lawyer, way over the top. Lastly Sean Penn is great, but I just found it too hard to forget it was Penn doing a silly voice and acting. I felt the same about Hoffman as Rainman so let that guide you. I almost feel they are too famous to get away with becoming these characters. The character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, then unknown to me, in Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, I did believe and was mesmerised by. So, if you believed Rainman youll believe Sam.

The film as whole I hated but only because I cant bare this kind of film. I find these heart-wrenching tales too depressing to spend my life watching. Im not sure that its solely a film for a female audience and Im certainly not a fan of blockbuster shoot em up movies but this story did nothing for me at all. However too many people disagree with me on all counts for this film to be ignored. I dont watch soaps either so there must be millions of people queuing up to see it already! VAUGHAN SIVELL