I Am Sam covers old ground

Sean Penn was nominated for an Oscar for his role

By Neil Smith BBC News Online

Sean Penn was an unexpected best actor nominee at this year's Academy Awards, with many pundits expecting his spot to be filled by Golden Globe winner Gene Hackman.

But that is not to denigrate Penn's performance in I Am Sam.

The actor delivers a believable and at times moving portrait of a mentally-challenged adult trying to retain custody of his seven-year-old daughter.

It is just that Dustin Hoffman already covered this ground in Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man, taking home Oscars on both occasions.

The title comes from Dr. Seuss, whose nursery rhyme poesies reflect the limited faculties of Penn's character, Sam Dawson.

Laura Dern plays a foster mother

Fortunately mental incapacity is no bar to getting a job at Starbucks - depicted here as the kindliest employee on earth in a particularly egregious example of product placement.

Despite his handicap, Sam has raised his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning) single-handed. The trouble starts when she surpasses him intellectually, prompting social services to put her in foster care.

Enter Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer), a legal high-flier who reluctantly agrees to take Sam's case - and then only so she can appear more of a do-gooder to her workmates.

Gradually won over by Sam's warmth and decency, Rita starts to question the profession that has alienated her from her teenage son and turned her into a hard-nosed shrew.

But that may not be enough to convince the court that Lucy should be with her father and not with kindly foster mom Randy (Laura Dern).

Pfeiffer tries to stamp her mark on the role

Sadly, an excellent cast that includes two-time Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest and West Wing star Richard Schiff cannot save this trite melodrama from the mawkish sludge it has mistaken for a script.

It is also questionable whether director Jessie Nelson should have surrounded Penn with a posse of disadvantaged buddies, at least one of whom is genuine - a casting decision that borders on the exploitative.

Penn's collection of mannerisms and tics are impeccably observed but ultimately prove to be more irritating than enlightening.

And Pfeiffer fights to impose her personality on a piece in which she is very much second banana.

The result is a film as inauthentic as the Beatles cover versions that pepper the soundtrack - a move forced on the producers after George Harrison refused to let them use the originals.

Apparently, he was still annoyed with Penn for so-called "bad boy" behaviour on the set of Shanghai Surprise, which Harrison produced.

I Am Sam opens across the UK on Friday 10 May.