104 in 2009 Week 18: In America and Holiday

Two more this week, both good but not great. Still better than last week, though.

In America
Jim Sheridan, 2003

On paper, this sounds like a sappy, schmaltzy mess. An Irish immigrant family sneaks into New York so the father can pursue his dream of acting and so that they can try to get over the loss of one of their children to a tumble-induced tumor. It’s told from the perspective of a precocious twelve-year-old girl who records everything around her on video. There’s a sequence in which a fourth, newborn child may or may not die right out of the womb. Writing all of this makes me want to hate the movie.

Amazingly, though, Jim Sheridan shows a sure hand throughout, and manages to repeatedly turn schmaltz into emotion. He’s helped immensely by the children portraying the two young girls, who do spectacular work and manage to be cute without being ‘cutesy,’ and an adult cast filled with semi-familiar but very adept character actors.

8/10

Holiday
George Cukor, 1938

For a romantic comedy, Holiday sure does traffic in human misery. In fact, I’m tempted to call it a drama that happens to have some jokes in it. I don’t intend this as a slight – it’s actually quite good, filled with strong characters and better than average acting for the time. But it is telling that the most interesting and compelling character was Lew Ayres’ Ned, who starts out looking like a spoiled rich kid, but turns out to be defined by the tragic pairing of astuteness and weakness, and spends every day in an alcoholic stupor because he’s given up on everything else in the world. Even Katharine Hepburn’s trademark charming mania winds up turning into pitiful desperation. Very compelling stuff, and atypical for the era and the genre. Unfortunately, the last third of the movie isn’t as carefully drawn as the rest – the dialogue gains an unfortunate tendency to turn into oration and the pace gets a bit sluggish– so I can’t recommend it as highly as I would have liked to.

7.5/10

Progress: 39 (Par + 3)