Though much of In America is downright hokey, and the multitude of (assumedly intentional) anachronisms are a bit brain-breaking, the emotional core is deep and the performances (especially by sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger as the young daughters) are winning. A few scenes (such as one in which the loser would-be-actor dad (Paddy Considine) nearly gambles away the family's entire savings trying to win an E.T. doll at a carnival) are riveting, and the treatment of each character's grief process (a third child had died) is surprisingly nuanced. I was particularly impressed with the father's emotional terrain—in his denial and attempts to be the strong, silent type, he displays a hidden vulnerability and desperation in virtually everything he does. Faring less well is a hackneyed "dying artist" character (Djimon Hounsou) whose benevolent, beautiful spirit is positively cartoonish, and the grieving mother (Samantha Morton), whose role is not developed nearly to the depth of the dad's. The kids are terrific, and one scene features Sarah Bolger performing "Desperado" at a school talent show, in clear homage to the Langley Schools Music Project CD, which is a bit hipper than you'd expect from this kind of stock uplifting tearjerker. The sense of time is skewed (it feels like the early 80s, but looks like the early 00s), and whatever the director's intent with this, it just seems like laziness. You just can't have a family go see E.T. in the theater and also have them tote around a sleek new camcorder without one or the other (or both) of these elements coming across as contrived. For all its problems, In America succeeds in its primary goal of getting your sympathy and squeezing a few salty tears out of your cold, unfeeling eyes. You just can't go wrong with kids being impossibly cute and positive through a series of catastrophes … it ain't real, but it's probably what we all want to believe.
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