Totally brain-dead

How the hell did they get Sean Penn to star in I Am Sam? Perhaps the greatest actor of his generation finds himself plunked in the middle of one of the more annoying, insulting and embarrassing films in many a year.

Penn portrays Sam Dawson, a mentally challenged man with all the whooping and screaming bravado of Jerry Lewis in his “hey lay-deee!” heyday, and it’s a painful thing to watch. Rather than presenting a film that seriously approaches the hardships of the disabled, we get one that asks you to laugh at a mentally retarded man falling down the stairs, leaving the cap off a spurting, mocha-filled blender and being comically dragged around by leashed dogs. I just couldn’t believe my eyes and ears watching this thing.

Penn’s character fathers a child with a homeless woman and is left with the baby when the mom scrams after the child’s birth. Sam raises the baby girl, named Lucy after The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” (one of many Fab Four references), and a video montage takes us to the child’s seventh year. As it turns out, Sam has the intellect of a 7-year-old, and from this day on, his child will proceed to become smarter than him in many ways.

During one of his ritualistic visits to IHOP, Sam is arrested because a hooker sat down at his table and talked to him. (If this arrest is based in any way on fact, I advise all of you to exhibit extremely antisocial behavior the next time you frequent a Los Angeles pancake house.) When it’s discovered that Sam is a single parent, he is red-flagged by an evil Department of Child and Family Services and his child is promptly taken away.

The movie tries to preach that this is a bad thing, but the character of Sam is clearly incapable of raising a child on his own. I’m not saying a person with a mental disability is incapable of raising a child; I’m saying the character of Sam, who flips out when they don’t have his favorite breakfast at Bob’s Big Boy, is clearly not. Child service employees are depicted in a villainous light because they are concerned for the welfare of the child, and it’s just distasteful.

Certainly, the story of a mentally challenged man raising a child by himself raises some serious issues of interest and definitely warrants a film of some sort. But this goofy, implausible, damned near slapstick concoction from director and co-writer Jessie Nelson creates so many cringes, viewers will have to check their mirrors for permanent wrinkles due to prolonged facial contortions of disgust.

Making matters worse—far worse—is Michelle Pfeiffer in the role of Sam’s attorney, taking on his case pro bono to show coworkers that she possesses a charitable spirit. Pfeiffer is required to mug even more than Penn. She reaches a career low point when she edges close to Sam and appears moments away from a romantic embrace because he looks damn good in the stylish suit she has lent him. Pfeiffer is in need of major career resuscitation.

The movie has a few bright spots, including the enchanting Dakota Fanning as Sam’s daughter, a jewel in a sea of muck. Also notable are Joseph Rosenberg and Brad Allen Silverman—two developmentally disabled men—as Sam’s buddies. Their performances are the kind of honest, sweet portrayals that most of the film is sorely lacking.

I Am Sam is officially a 2001 release, so I would like to add this to the list of last year’s worst. It’s a deranged example of good actors doing a very bad thing.