i am sam (2001)

i am Sam...Two words: Editing mess. This movie is well intentioned, but is edited so badly, I felt like I was having a seizure during it. The film tells the story of Sam (Sean Penn), a mentally challenged man who has a daughter with a homeless woman who leaves almost immediately after the birth, leaving Sam to raise her by himself. The daughter, named Lucy (Dakota Fanning) after a Beatles song that Sam loves, loves her father dearly, but as she grows to the age of seven, which is Sam’s mental age, she begins to notice that Sam is “different”. As a result, she holds back in school to avoid looking smarter than him. Questions are then raised about Sam’s ability to raise her, leading to Child Protective Services eventually taking Lucy away on her birthday. Sam begins a legal battle to regain custody of Lucy, with the help of a cold-hearted lawyer, Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer), who agreed to take on his case for free to make herself look good to her colleagues. The story isn’t bad, and is actually interesting at times. The editing is very bad, however. An example is a scene where Sam is taking the stand in his case, the camera cuts to multiple angles in only a few seconds. The editor won an Academy Award for editing Star Wars: A New Hope! What happened buddy?? The film references Kramer vs. Kramer multiple times, at least one scene is a blatant ripoff of scenes from that movie. There’s even one scene where the film is talked about. All in all, i am Sam is a decent movie, good story, good characters, awful editing. I rate this film FAIR on the scale.