I Am Sam
Tags: psychological, thought-provoking, feel-good, psychedelic, romantic, sentimental

Plot synopsis:
Sam Dawson (Sean Penn), a mentally challenged man with a mind of a child, is living in Los Angeles and is single-handedly raising his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning), whom he fathered from a homeless woman who wanted nothing to do with Lucy and left him the day of her birth. Although Sam provides a loving and caring environment for the 7-year-old Lucy, she soon surpasses her father's mental capacity. Questions arise about Sams ability to care for Lucy and a custody case is brought to court.Sam is a man with a mental age of 7 who 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 can't.Sam works at Starbucks bussing tables. Sam 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's different, "not like other dads", but that's all right with her because he is loving, taking 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 him only two supervised, 2-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-functioningmore 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.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, the newly divorced Rita and her son with whom Rita has renewed her relationship, along with Annie and Sam's other friends.

Review: Penn is highly under rated in the world that is movies, as he shows with this Oscar potential performance.The young actress who plays his daughter is amazingly mature in her acting, whilst always managing to capture the innocence of her youthfullness.
I watched it with my 13 year old daughter and it alternately made us cry, got us angry and caused us to laugh uncontrollably.Sam is loved and respected by those who know him (Starbuck's patrons, IHOP Waitress, friends), taunted by those who have no regard for anyone different (Lucy's arrogant classmate and his equally arrogant father) and generally misunderstood by everyone else.I especially liked the irony of the lawyer, who is an emotional train wreck, yet because she's an adult intellecutally, no one questions her ability as a parent.
Government officials question his ability to raise his daughter, and I Am Sam becomes the tale of Sam's legal battle to retain custody of Lucy, aided by high profile lawyer Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer).I Am Sam will likely make you say, "Wow!" afterward because it is a masterpiece on every artistic and technical level.All of the major cast members give one of the best performances of their careers, and many of these actors have had a number of artistic triumphs on their résumés.
Wiest, Richard Schiff, Laura Dern and others also turn in very complex performances that convey characters with deep, multifaceted histories, despite their relatively little screen time.Nelson approaches the film with a number of unusual artistic and technical angles that all work wonderfully.
Sean Penn as a devoted father (Sam) who despite mental challenges, fights for the right to raise his child is convincing in a complete departure from his usual "bad guy" characters.
Michelle Pfeiffer plays his reluctant "pro bono" elite lawyer, who eventually puts 110% into this case.The love between Sam and his 7 year old daughter is evident in many sweet scenes (got Kleenex?), best described by a reclusive neighbor (wonderfully played by Dianne Wiest), who overcomes her hermit-like condition long enough to testify in Sam's behalf.
I Am Sam is one of, if not the best, motion picture of all time.I Am Sam is about a retarded man named Sam (Sean Penn) who has a mental capacity of a 7-year old.
Dakota Fanning's premiere role is by far her greatest ever, and at only six years old opened the eyes of actresses who've been in the business for years and basically screamed into their faces "This is how acting is done." And Michelle Pfeiffer delivers a phenomenal, incredibly realistic performance that will absolutely take your breath away.As the film progresses, you will find yourself laughing one minute, crying the next (you WILL cry no matter how mature or old you are, so make sure you have tissues), the next moment tapping your foot along to the familiar Beatles tunes found throughout the movie (even though they're covers) and the next moment simply staring at the screen not believing your eyes and ears at how emotionally powerful a film can be.And after watching, you won't want to ever give the DVD back to Blockbuster.
This movie is utterly beautiful, so feel it deeply and follow to the end of the story about Sam struggling for the right to return his daughter Lucy Diamond home.
In fact, I thought the only performance that was better than Penn's came not from Michelle Pfeiffer (who disappointed me a bit, actually) but rather from little Dakota Fanning as Sam's daughter Lucy.
Pfeiffer, on the other hand, (as Sam's lawyer Rita Harrison) just didn't carry the role off that well, and even the courtroom scenes to me lacked the tension one would have expected from such an emotionally-laden issue.The movie weakens in the last little bit, going for the sappy (and highly unrealistic) ending - unrealistic particularly in the way Lucy's foster mother (Laura Dern) ends up handling the situation.Having said that, I still enjoyed this movie very much.
Ending feels a bit rushed, but that would be the only criticism.Sean Penn gives a superb performance as the mentally challenged Sam. Deserved his Oscar nomination and very unlucky to miss out in the end (went to Denzel Washington for Training Day).
In the film, Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) is a mentally challenged single father who's left by, as what it seems, a one night stand homeless woman to raise his daughter Lucy(Dakota Fanning).
He's a sweet, good-natured, and loving father to Lucy that is equally attached to him.Unfortunately, a sordid twist of fate takes place in their paradise, at Lucy's 7th birthday a social worker believes that Sam, having the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, can't raise his child that is outgrowing him.
Lucy is taken to a foster care temporarily as her father, along with the help of his mentally challenged friends, tries to find a high-profile attorney that can help him get his child back.After multiple attempts, Sam manages to appoint an attorney (Michelle Pfeiffer) who only takes the job at first as a dare.
Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a successful busy lawyer that comes home to a cheating man and a son who hates her, through the movie Sam and Rita develop a friendly relationship which is an eye-opening for Rita to value her family and be more involved in her son's life.
Sam goes through a legal battle to retain custody of Lucy, aided by his mentally challenged friends, his agoraphobic neighbor Annie Cassell (Diana Wiest), and his high profile determined lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer).The film is enriched with major cast members that in turn give out one of their best performances in their career life.
Least but not last, the amazing Dakota Fanning did a remarkable role on the set, and by far one of her best performances as a child.The movie is Beatles-themed as we first understand Sam's character as an impressive Beatles-knowledgeable person despite being retarded.
The film is sweeping in its beauty, director Jessie Nelson did a great job in portraying her idea of "I Am Sam" into an absolutely wonderful movie especially after a 7 years of film directing drought.
I wanted to like this movie- ( I have a brother who is mentally handicapped) but after watching it I felt it had tried to hard to manipulate my emotions in such an obvious way.
First, Sam (Sean Penn) is surrounded by his inner circle of friends who are also mentally handicapped and who come across much more believable, probably because they are in real life.
So Sean Penn's character 'Sam' stands out against his group of friends like a fish out of water, trying to get in every speech and facial nuance that says 'hello I'm retarded'.
Michelle Pheiffer over-acts, first as her 'I am a beautiful female lawyer who has what it takes to win a case' to the understanding sensitive pro-bono attorney who makes Sam's case (to regain custody of Lucy) her exclusive campaign, all the while having to constantly push her hair out of her face in order to impart the facts of family court to Sam.By the end of the film, Sam seems to have gotten smarter, his verbal skills are quicker and it seems his thinking is faster.
Sam manages to get pro-bono support from the efficient and rushed Rita Harrison and starts a challenging process to try and get Lucy back.It is good that Hollywood is able to put issues and ideas up on the screen like this but it is the way that it delivers these things that generally kills them.
This amazing movie shows a very well obtained combination of excellent acting (specially Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning), a powerful and deep script and the excellent choice of a music to make you feel totally the beauty of this film, a piece of art.
Thumbs up for Jessie Nelson!.About the Movie: This touching story is about Sam (Sean Penn) a man mentally retarded who works at Starbucks, has some particular friends (also with mental problems), but very close and is a fan of the Beatles, and who has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandoned him and his daughter too.
Sean Penn plays Sam, a mentally challenged man that instantly becomes a single parent, when the mother immediately abandons them when they leave the hospital.
never really explained) and Michelle Pfeiffer plays the cliched overworked, no-time-for-her-family, badly-needs-to-learn-what's-important-in-life-from-a-retarded-person career woman lawyer who is shamed into defending Penn's character in court when he is threatened with having his daughter taken away from him.
More "hows" were generated than answers.The best thing to come out of this movie was Dakota Fanning (Lucy, Sam's daughter).
But, it makes a statement so one-sided and irresponsible that you cannot help but feel like you have just eaten a huge meal of empty calories by the time it is done.The basic premise behind the film is that love is all that one needs in order to raise a child.
It does so by showing Sean Penn's character -- a mentally handicapped man -- trying to raise his daughter on his own and having various officials coming down on him to "take his daughter away from him".
In fact, that is still an over-exaggeration because Haley's mental age would still have been more than that of the character of Sam. Because we see Sean Penn physically as an adult, we don't question his abilities and we are more likely to feel sorry for him.
How the users seem to be more impressed and taken aback by the lead performances to completely oversee the glaring faults staring them right in the face is beyond me.Those who have praised this film do so by crediting Sean Penn's performance as the autistic father, Sam, of a young child, Lucy.
But it does not outweigh, in any way, shape or form, the awkward direction and choreography that's so shamefully profound I am astounded it's never fully come to light in other user's reviews, or, more disturbingly, is actually loved by them.Half the time, I found myself watching a documentary trying to emulate the warmheartedness of everyday people and their selfless actions, which then hap-hazardly shifts towards the actual drama between Sam and his daughter Lucy relevant to the actual storyline, and this laughable disequilibrium unfortunately carries on throughout the film; running in parallel to what is otherwise a class act by Sean Penn.
So essentially, what is left as the final product is, well, just a shamefully abhorrent mess.Backing performances are weak, and though Michelle Pfeiffer's character begins pretty solid (as they do in these types of films), her development throughout the film poorly progresses to the end goal of self-realization (aided by Penn's Sam Dawson.) Some scenes were pointlessly dumped in throughout the running time (which I won't mention here, I'm sure you can figure it out once you watch the film, if you haven't already done so,) and I'm intrigued as to what scenes the editors decided to scrap altogether.And it doesn't stop there.
Those who also credited the director for his "artistic attempts" ought to also invest their time in watching much better directed films of the same category that would make Nelson's 'artistry' look like an amateurish high school project.One out of 10 may appear too harsh and cold to many of you reading this, but there are seldom any good points I can make about this mentally exhausting and emotionally torturous movie that has the exact opposite effect on me as that of which it was intending to create, and Sean Penn's leading role is not enough to uphold and take lift to a diabolical drama anchored down by a mass array of film making faults..
Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Dakota Fanning all do a fantastic job at portraying their respective characters.
But Jessie Nelson's "I Am Sam" approach the Beatles like a real Gospel of life.This well-meaning drama is about the group's number-one fan: Sam, a Starbucks Coffee employee with the mind of a 7-year old child fighting for the custody of his daughter of the same age, needless to say that we're supposed to root for him.
The performance of Sean Penn has been deemed as 'full retard' by "Tropic Thunder" and you can tell it's the kind of one-note approach that doesn't work in movies, especially since he's not always in the same level of smartness, he's capable of detecting hidden messages beneath the Beatles songs, but sometimes, he can't even handle a client in his Starbucks shop.
My only objection to the movie is that she wasn't listed more prominently in the credits.Sean Penn delivers a strong performance, but what makes it so interesting is seeing him and Dakota on the screen at the same time interacting, not just cuts back and forth between them.
Yes, Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning did an excellent job, but it wasn't enough to save the movie.
Other departments just fared well and is acting too is good.It's over sentimentality has made this just an average flick which could have otherwise been a must watch for the way Sam was portrayed by Sean Penn.
I would not argue about the law, i.e. whether it was right or not when the Sam's daughter was taken away from him, I'd rather talk about the extraordinary acting of Sean Penn supported by Michelle Pfeiffer, he was simply the best.
Sean Penn, Dakota Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer really manage to break my heart and sew it up again in this movie.
Uneven film that is a must-see for Sean Penn's Oscar-nominated performance as a mentally retarded man who has the capabilities of a seven-year-old mentally.
Penn's friends, played by real-life mentally challenged men, add good turns and make the film more convincing.
The best part i liked in the movie was, when Lucy starts seeing her father in night and Sam bring here back.
In my opinion it represents entirely what a film such as this should represent.Yes it is a David versus Goliath story that has people gasping in awe from the side-stand, but to me this film opened up to become a fantastical display of directing, acting and script that drew me in and had me rooting for Sam (played to perfection by Penn) from the very start until it came to the, albeit rather expected, dramatic ending.Some people may think that from the sound of the description the film will be just like rain man and well you are, my dear friends, epically wrong.
That is all.The remarkable acting by all the cast in this spectacular film just shows how it should be done, it isn't wooden, it is robust, Penn, Fanning and Pfieffer showed great on screen chemistry that gave me the feeling of actual life, Pfieffer's character showing empathy, Fanning as the loving daughter and Penn as the adoring father that attempts the impossible to make his daughter, and himself, happy.The camera work was (and again my opinion) totally key to the feel of this film, the constant shifting and changing as though you were yourself in the mind of Sam; confused and at some points distracted.
I Am Sam is one of those movies that we assume will be just like every other Hollywood outing, but until you open the box, put the DVD into your player, and experience the music, the visuals, as well as the phenomenal acting; you will never quite understand why I Am Sam carried above the Hollywood standard.On the apparent level, I Am Sam works because of Sean Penn.
Penn gives an extraordinary performance as a mentally challenged single parent to his 7 year old daughter (sweet and smartly played by newcomer Fanning) and enlists Type A attorney Pfeiffer (excellent as well)  to help him keep her from being taken away from him.
A mentally retarded man, Sam, fights for custody of his 7-year-old daughter, and in the process teaches his cold-hearted lawyer the value of love and family.This film reached my expectations but it didn't overcame it.
This film is not very good but it's good without getting bad but this is a great film all about loving people.The acting by Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer were exceptionally great, while others like Dakota Fanning and Loretta Devine were okay.The cinematography was good.
Wheel after seeing the best movie of the world for 5 times and appreciating the brilliant performance of Sean Penn and all characters, i was think to myself of what is the real objective of the director Jessie Nelson.I think that behind the issue of the movie about the story of Sam trying to achieve Lucy's custody, the true goal of the film is to open our eyes about what is the most important things in our lives.It's clear in the movie that all the institutions that we created to rule our lives just fail when our deep emotions begin to show.Indeed, i think the question that appears on the movie is: What is really important to us?Reason or emotion?Is because of this and a lot of things that i consider this movie all perfect and that everyone in the world should watch it too.This movie added a lot in my life and showed me that all that we have to have in mind is to live well, happily and lovely..
He did an outstanding job in this movie playing Sam, a man with a mental handicap trying to win custody of his daughter, Lucy.The feeling I was left with after watching this movie was powerful.
I am Sam, put on in feature Sean Penn, Michelle pfeiffer and Dakota Fanning making a very good movie with a good French version too and show up the truth of how handicaped poeple live.I think you get to see it and for my own I have appreciated it very much.
What makes this a great film is the story and Sean Penn's and Michelle Pffiefers performances.