SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

classicsoncall There are a number of credibility defying moments in this film, but as you watch, you begin to see them as real, or at least wish they were real. A lot of the spark and magic in the story is provided by real life sisters, Sarah and Emma Bolger, portraying the young daughters of Johnny (Paddy Considine) and Sarah (Samantha Morton) Sullivan, newly arrived immigrants from Ireland via Canada. Though it's a modern day story, the picture's cinematography evokes a somewhat earlier era, perhaps a time when New York City might have been a tad safer and more welcoming, even though you might not get that perspective from the run down apartment building the Sullivans are forced to call home. There's a plaintive quality to the life of the Sullivan Family, as they live in the shadow of a young son's death at the age of two, both parents blaming themselves and each other for what was an unfortunate accident, and even more dismally, the specter of a brain tumor that would have taken it's eventual toll. The presence of their screaming-man neighbor Mateo (Djimon Hounsou) turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as the evolving friendship between him and the Sullivans, particularly the girls, reveals a humanity in people that often remains unseen until we take the trouble to get to know them. The story is loosely built around the idea of Christy's (Sarah Bolger) three wishes granted by her deceased brother Frankie. There's only one moment when I thought the script writers took things a little too far, and that was when Christy stated to her dad that she had been carrying the weight of the family around ever since Frankie died. She may have thought so in the deep recesses of her mind, and maybe even felt that way, but no child of her age would have been capable of expressing such a sentiment in words the way she did. But for me, that's a minor nit-pick, as the over all story is one of quiet reflection and inspiration, and not without an occasional tear to share with the Sullivan family.

isabelcsilva I'm not much of a fan of this kind of movie, but this one got me in a fantastic way. It was really heart touching and won some tears from me. I had already seen the film and yet I surrendered to the message it passes. It is incredible how the human being manages to gather in little more than an hour and a half, teachings for the whole life. The part that touched me most, throughout the film, was when Mateo died and the baby was born. That moment was special and made me meditate on life and it's meaning.

sbrooks-966-182544 The most moving point of the film for me occurred during the final crawler where I realized just how autobiographical this film was. Brother and sister Sheridan wrote the screenplay about their own experiences as children. This knowledge made the personal choices of the characters, real and understandable. I suspect that Sheridan's real mother and father would have made the choices we witnessed in the movie. But these same personal choices made watching the film a bit difficult for me. I had trouble liking these characters when they foolishly gambled their rent money and their family's future on a kewpie doll. Or, when they let their little girls trick-or-treat unsupervised in a flop house peopled with junkies and muggers. Or when they sent their girls off to the streets of Brooklyn unsupervised at night in a torrential downpour to get ice cream. Or when the mother allowed herself to have an intimate (but not physical) friendship with a handsome young artist while her husband worked, driving cab -- this shouldn't, but so often can lead to marital difficulties and I think it put at risk, the mother-father relationship which supports a family. The movie deals with the loss of their son -- a baby boy -- who has died by the time the movie starts. We are told that he fell down the stairs. I found myself thinking that, with their parental style, it may actually have been a preventable death. This distrust, even dislike, of this couple made is difficult for me to fully enjoy this drama as it unfolded. True, the movie tells a very real story in very real way (except for one scene where the 12- year-old says a very un-12-yr-old thing when she says, "I'm carrying this family") But, being realistic may not be enough for this viewer. I need to be able to identify with, or root for, my protagonists. In this movie I found myself sometimes fearful for, sometimes pitying and sometimes shocked by this innocent, hapless family as they struggled nobly but sometimes carelessly against the difficulties of life.

evanston_dad Ugh. The love of this film totally escapes me.Jim Sheridan's story about Irish immigrants struggling with their new life in America is clearly heartfelt, but it's also sappy and overbearingly sentimental. Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton play a father and mother of two little girls who have left what to all appearances was a prosperous life in Ireland to escape the memories of another child's death. But the film never successfully establishes why they'd rather scrape together an existence in America than simply move to a different home/city in their native country, or to the UK, or to Canada. I was supposed to feel bad about how cold and uncaring the U.S. appeared to these people, but I didn't, because all of their decisions were completely voluntary and this isn't the 1890s.Grade: C-