Tough Tale of New York

Film Review by Georgina Brennan

THERE are lots of good movies out there if you look. There are even some that grow on you after a while. But there are few movies that involve you so much that you want to take the characters home to live with you. Few movies that live on long after the credits have rolled. But there is one this holiday season that does spread it’s little magic. It just so happens this movie is an Irish-made, Irish-written and Irish-acted movie. It also just so happens that this is a movie made by a director that has only great movies behind him. 

Jim Sheridan’s In America is a gorgeous movie. For anyone who ever stared straight at an immigration officer and told a blatant lie, tried to find an apartment without two pennies to rub together, or asked why a boot was a trunk, or a lift was an elevator, or a bin a trashcan, this movie is sort of their story. 

I say sort of because In America is Sheridan’s story. It’s his and only his, but he is such a generous man that he shares that story with anyone who wants a piece and gives it wrapped up in a nice clean family film released just in time for Thanksgiving. 

In America is about two parents and their two daughters moving from Ireland to Manhattan after a death in the family. Their son Frankie died of a brain hemorrhage. The movie details their arrival as illegal immigrants through Canada and on to New York where the father, Johnny (Paddy Considine), tries to land work as an actor. 

Druggies and whores inhabit their apartment, they struggle to fit in and survive and at the same time deal with their grief. One of the huge things about this movie is that it is about death as much as it is about life and for anyone who has ever lost anyone, In America truly deeply and accurately portrays grief. 

You see the space that person used to inhabit is still there, you look for them around every corner, in every crowd and each time you know they are near, you are just prevented from seeing them, they die all over again. 

Constantly in the movie, Frankie is missed, so much so that in a couple of scenes you find yourself looking for him because he has become so much a part of the story that when you can’t see him, you begin to cry. Much of the reason this movie is so effective in conveying that constant sense of loss is because, told through the eyes of 11-year-old daughter Christy (who narrates the story, and is played by newcomer Sarah Bolger) and her sister Ariel (Emma Bolger, Sarah’s actual younger sister), the movie presents a vision of living that’s wondrous and overwhelming all at the same time. 

The movie is about what happens to people who just want to get by against the odds. And you wouldn’t think that would be interesting until you see ordinary played out on the screen as it becomes extraordinary through the eyes of the children. 

Johnny and wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) have no choice but to live in squalor on her waitress wages as they try to make it in New York. But the one scene that makes that painfully clear is played out as a carnival game. This is because Sheridan wisely invited his two real life daughters, Naomi and Kirsten to write with him on the movie, just because as an adult Jim had forgotten a bit of the magic and a lot of the wonder of childhood. 

“I miss things,” says Ariel in one scene. She misses home and the life the family had before Frankie died and everyone was sad and they came to America and that scene delivered so expertly by Emma hooks the entire movie. You the audience member are thus forced to miss the happiness the family used to have and want them to find it again. You care and because you care you get a bit of magic at the bottom of your popcorn tub to take home and keep forever.