The movie, I am Sam, is about a man who has a mental abnormality of a seven years old. Despite his mental abnormality, he tries to be a good father and raises his child to the best of his ability. The selected scene above is when Lucy, Sam's daughter, starts to question about her mom and why her father is different from other fathers.
To analyze from a moral point of view, I think that Sam feels very guilty and remorseful for being different from other fathers. He pities his daughter that he cannot be the best dad to fulfill his daughter's life. Lucy acknowledges the situation, thus telling her dad to not feel apologetic towards her. She cheers him up by saying that no one is lucky like her to have a daddy that comes to the park with his children. In my opinion, it is very impressing that a young child can be this understanding towards the situation she is facing. I feel that the conversation between Sam and Lucy is very profound and heartfelt for the audience. It teaches them to be understanding like Lucy. Not only that, in the end of the movie, Lucy chooses to stay with her dad and not any other families the court replaces her with. This reinforces the idea of how much Lucy loves her dad, disregarding his mental abnormality, and this shows the readers of 'unconditional love'.
On the other hand, Sam tries to cheer up Lucy not to feel inferior from any other kids regarding her family issues. He mentions, "God picks certain people, special people" to answer why Lucy's mom left her. He epitomizes hollywood stars like Paul McCartney and John Lennon that they can still be stars even though they lost their mom. This teaches Lucy that she, having lost her mother like McCartney and Lennon, can also be a star. Personally, I feel that Sam is a very good father. His sayings towards Lucy is very inspiring and uplifting because it teaches Lucy to accept the truth yet become a normal person in society like McCartney and Lennon.
There are many techniques used in this script. The use of language in this movie is very carefully chosen the way that it is easily distinguishable between Sam and Lucy's verbal expression. From the selected extract of the script above, we can see that Lucy's verbal is fluent while Sam's verbal is repetitive. This contrast effect shows the readers of Lucy being mentally and physically older than her father.
To conclude, I strongly feel that Sam is just as good as any other fathers can be disregarding the differences. Although Sam might not be the best parent, his love for his child is not inferior from any other parents.
Prim,
ReplyDeleteBy analyzing I AM SAM through a moral point of view, you opened up meaning that might not have been present to the average viewer. Nicely done. Good choice of script and scene. Sean Penn was great in that role, wasn't he? I forgot how great the soundtrack was, too. Thanks for sharing.