In America Review

Get those hankies at the ready because if you're of a sensitive disposition, your tear ducts won't know what's hit them when you watch this sweetly told tale of an Irish family moving to Manhattan. Kicking off at the Canadian border, we find our Irish émigrés - husband and wife Johnny and Sarah and their two daughters, Ariel and Christy - sneaking into the land of the free to start a new life. But once they hit the Big Apple, things don't go quite as planned. Sarah has to wait tables instead of teaching and Johnny just can't get the acting break he needs. Meanwhile none of the family seem to be able to put their real reason for leaving home - the devastating death of their third child Frankie - firmly behind them.

Based on "My Left Foot" director Jim Sheridan's own experiences in New York, the movie at first smacks far too much of an indulgent pet project. The fish-out-of-water humour is rather repetitive, the plot contrived and the ever-brilliant Samantha Morton seems to have been given only two lines in the first half hour. But then almost imperceptibly "In America" gets under your skin by dint of its quite remarkable performances. True, the sentiment and preachiness on show may make the more cynical amongst the audience groan, but the brilliant Paddy Considine and Morton as the parents are only upstaged by their on-screen daughters, real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger. Winsome without being too cute, they hold together the movie until its genuinely moving close. A real heart-warmer if ever there was one.