In America
Director: Jim Sheridan
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 0.5
Ah-hah! Another film that uses the word "semi-autobiographical" to sneak in some incredibly suspect goings-on! A family moves to America from Ireland with virtually no money, forces their beaming children to live in an apartment complex with dangerous drug addicts and other sleazy types while the father struggles to become ... an actor. Meanwhile, his daughters befriend a dying painter (Djimon Hounsou) who exists solely to die ... and provide money for them. Goes way overboard in its religious convictions, accusing the father of not believing God, and also features two scenes in which the man's wife and the man's daughter, both hysterical, look at him and scream they don't know who he is. Did I mention the consistently milked dead brother bit (Frankie) whose ghostly specter - looming over them all - is invoked time after time, in a crass bid to get you choked up? Sirk, Haynes and Fassbinder aren't this thick.
