I Am Sam
| I Am Sam | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Jessie Nelson |
| Written by | Kristine Johnson, Jessie Nelson |
| Produced by | Jessie Nelson Barbara Hall Marshall Herskovitz Ed Zwick Richard Solomon |
| Starring | Sean Penn Michelle Pfeiffer Dakota Fanning Laura Dern Richard Schiff Loretta Devine Dianne Wiest |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | December 28, 2001 |
Running time | 132 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $22,000,000 (estimate) |
| Box office | $40,270,895 |
I Am Sam is a 2001 drama telling the story of a mentally challenged father and his efforts to retain custody of his daughter.
The film was directed by Jessie Nelson and stars Sean Penn with Dakota Fanning, Dianne Wiest, Loretta Devine, Richard Schiff, Laura Dern and Michelle Pfeiffer. It was written by Kristine Johnson and Jessie Nelson, and also features three people with disabilities, who are playing themselves: Andrew Stanely, Joe Rosenberg, and Brian Bialick, all of whom are in a group called L.A. GOAL (Greater Opportunities for the Advanced Living), a social organization that deals with adults with developmental disabilities.
Sean Penn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film, which also received the Stanley Kramer Award.
Synopsis
Sam Dawson (Sean Penn), a mentally challenged man with the mental equivalency of a 7-year-old, lives in Los Angeles and is single-handedly raising his daughter, Lucy (Dakota Fanning). He has been sole guardian for the child since his ex-wife, a former homeless woman, walked out on the day of Lucy's birth. Though Sam provides a loving and caring environment for the 7-year-old, she soon surpasses her father's mental capacity. Questions arise about Sam’s ability to care for Lucy and a custody case is brought to court.
Despite Sam's intellectual limitations, he is well adjusted and has a great support system consisting of four similarly developmentally disabled men. His neighbor Annie (Dianne Wiest), a piano-player and agoraphobe, befriends Sam and takes care of Lucy when Sam cannot.
Sam works at Starbucks bussing tables. He is popular with the customers, whom he addresses by name and favorite coffee. His job gets difficult when Lucy starts grabbing objects, making a woman spill iced coffee down her shirt. In a humorous, but innocent exchange, Sam tries to remove an ice cube from the startled woman's cleavage. Sam then brings Lucy to his neighbor and baby Lucy croons, "Annie!" Sam says, "Her first word was Annie." Flustered but flattered, she retorts, "And people worry you aren't smart," and agrees to function as Lucy's babysitter.
Lucy is as precocious as Sam is backwards. Sam loves reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss to her, but when she starts reading "real hard" books like Stellaluna, she balks at reading the word "different" because she doesn't want to be smarter than her dad. She knows he is "not like other dads", but that's all right with her because he is loving and takes her to the park and to International House of Pancakes (every Wednesday, because "Wednesday is IHOP night").
When they decide to go to Big Boy for a change, Sam causes a disturbance because he cannot get the kind of French pancakes he is accustomed to. At the school Halloween party, he dresses as Paul McCartney but embarrasses his daughter by drawing undue attention. Other kids tease her, calling her dad a "retard". She tells one boy that she is adopted. This causes a crisis at her birthday party, which results in an unexpected visit from a social worker who takes Lucy away. A judge allows Sam only two supervised, two-hour visits per week.
Sam's friends recommend that he hire Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer), a lawyer. He shows up at her office and starts spelling out his situation while she juggles coffee orders to her assistant, Patricia. Socially, Sam is rather high-functioning and more together in many ways than his high-class, respected lawyer whose marriage is falling apart and whose son hates her.
Sam surprises Rita at a party. Stunned, she announces that she's taking his case pro bono, because others see her as cold and heartless.
Rita begrudgingly works with Sam to help him keep his parental rights, but chaos arises when Lucy convinces Sam to help her run away from the foster home she is being kept in during the trial. Over the course of the trial, Sam gets a new job at Pizza Hut and Annie leaves her apartment for the first time in years. Sam also helps Rita with her family problems, and helps her to realize how much her son really means to her. Sam also convinces her to leave her husband, because Rita told him that he cheated on her.
During the trial, however, Sam breaks down, after being convinced that he is not capable of taking care of Lucy.
Meanwhile, Lucy is placed with a foster family who plan to adopt her. Lucy often runs away from her foster parents in the middle of the night to go see Sam, who moved into a larger apartment closer to her, but each time Sam brings her back.
In the end, the foster family who planned on adopting Lucy lets Sam have custody of her. Sam says that Lucy still needs a mother and asks if the foster mother would like to help raise Lucy. The movie ends with Lucy's soccer game where Sam is the referee. In attendance are Lucy's former foster family and the newly divorced Rita and her son, with whom she has renewed her relationship, along with Annie and Sam's other friends.
Cast
- Sean Penn as Sam Dawson
- Dakota Fanning as Lucy Dawson
- Michelle Pfeiffer as Rita Harrison Williams
- Dianne Wiest as Annie Cassell
- Loretta Devine as Teacher Ghie
- Richard Schiff as Mr Turner
- Laura Dern as Randy Carpenter
- Brad Silverman as Brad
- Joseph Rosenberg as Joe
- Dennis Fanning as Vice Cop
Soundtrack
The soundtrack consists equally of covers of songs by The Beatles, and a score by John Powell. Initially, Penn wanted to set the movie solely to Beatles recordings. When the producers attempted to obtain the rights to use the songs, they learned that Michael Jackson, who owned the rights, was charging $300,000 per song. Should the rights have been purchased, it would have cost $4.5 million dollars, which would have set a record in terms of money paid for songs in a Hollywood production. Instead, Penn commissioned other artists, such as The Black Crowes, Stereophonics, Eddie Vedder, Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan, Rufus Wainwright, The Wallflowers, Ben Harper, The Vines and Ben Folds, to cover the songs for the soundtrack. Penn's brother Michael is also featured, singing a duet with his wife, Aimee Mann. The Beatles covers and the Powell score were issued on separate CDs.
Song uses
Sam's daughter is named after the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Lucy's idyllic early years are accompanied by "Across the Universe". At the Halloween party "I'm Looking Through You" drives home the point that Sam is "not the same" as other adults. We see Sam and Rita's relationship grow to "Golden Slumbers". Sam's lawyer's name comes from the Beatles song "Lovely Rita", a point made by Lucy. At the end of the film, "Two of Us" is used.
See also
- Main Aisa Hi Hoon, a Bollywood version.
External links
