In America

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For other uses, see In America (disambiguation).

In America

Directed by	Jim Sheridan
Produced by	Jim Sheridan, Arthur Lappin
Written by	Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan
Starring	Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton, Sarah Bolger, Emma Bolger, Djimon Hounsou
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release date(s)	September 13, 2002, World Premiere October 31, 2003, UK November 26th, 2003, US
Running time	105 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

In America is a 2002 film directed by Jim Sheridan, and co-written by Sheridan and his daughters Naomi and Kirsten. The character of Frankie, the dead brother was based on Jim Sheridan's real-life late brother, also named Frankie. The movie stars Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton, Sarah Bolger, Emma Bolger, and Djimon Hounsou.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the film, an Irish couple immigrate to the United States with their two young girls, Ariel and Christie, to start a new life in another country following the death of the girls' brother, Frankie, back in Ireland. An early voice-over sets the film in the early 1980s, but later causual references are inconsistent and the film often looks decidedly more contemporary. The film is narrated by Christie, the elder of the two young girls, though it focuses on the whole family's trials and tribulations and in parts is given something of a fairy tale spin derived from the girls' perspective.

The family are short on money and set up in a rundown apartment building in Hell's Kitchen, known locally as the "junkies' building." Despite their impoverishment, their initial joy of being in America, and the closeness of the family, gives them the energy to make the most of what they have. The mother, Sarah, gets a job in Heaven, a local ice-cream parlor, to support the family while Johnny, the girls' father, struggles to get work as an actor.

However, both Johnny and Sarah are unable to get over the sorrow, and guilt, of the still recent death of Frankie. Following the accident, the once-Catholic Johnny renounced God and lost any ability to feel true emotions, and changed as a man to his family. As money runs low and New York's temperatures soar, the family discovers that Sarah is pregnant, with a child whose birth could be fatal for her, and tensions between Johnny and Sarah begin to arise.

Around the same time of the conception of the new child we are introduced to Mateo, a resident of the family's building and previously known to the girls' as 'the man who screams' and the man behind the door marked "Keep Away." Mateo is an artist, and is shown to have a somehow spiritual bond to the family; his frenzied rage and blood-letting on a tempestous New York evening coincides with the conception of the family's new child.

At first the girls and then the parents befriend Mateo, though Johnny is reticent at first as Mateo gives him the "heebie jeebies." Johnny's relationship to Mateo changes, however, following a dispute in which he learns that Mateo is dying of AIDS.

The illness's deterioration of Mateo coincides with the growth of the child within Sarah. The child is born premature and unwell as Mateo heads towards his end, and the paths cross over in finality when the premature death of Mateo coincides with the first healthy movements of the new baby following a blood transfusion from Christie. At one stage in his illness, Mateo falls down a flight of stairs, and is knocked unconscious. Christie believes that he requires CPR, and attempts to administer the procedure herself. Before the transfusion the girls fret that she might have the same disease, but decide, conclusively, in their fairytale manner, that she cannot. However, something of the link between Mateo's blood and the new baby remains.

With the birth of the new baby and the death of Mateo, Johnny is finally able to overcome his lack of emotion and refusal of God and put his grieving for Frankie to rest.

Spiritual topics play a part in the film, with both the rebirth of Mateo as a new member of the family and the ideas of a life after death touched upon. Johnny's refusal of God after his child's death relate a common anger against God's "mysterious ways," and, though not overtly mentioned as such, Sarah's difficult pregnancy could be seen as a case of an abortion dilemma.