Product Description

Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Penn give career-defining performances in this humorous and heart-warming film about a mentally-challenged father who enlists the aid of a high-powered attorney to help him regain custody of his daughter. An all-star supporting cast and a spectacular soundtrack complete this unforgettable story of life, love and laughter.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Filmmaker Commentary - With Director / Co-screenwriter Jessie Nelson
DVD ROM Features:Script-to-Screen Link to Original Website Hot Spot
Deleted Scenes:Deleted and Alternate Scenes with optional Director commentary
Documentary:Original Documentary: Becoming Sam
Other:Theatrical Press Kit DTS sound
Theatrical Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2021 in DVD
• Brand: NEW Line Home Video
• Published on: 2002-06-01
• Released on: 2002-06-18
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 134 minutes

Features

• Condition: Used, Very Good
• Format: DVD
• Anamorphic; Closed-captioned; Color; DVD; Widescreen; NTSC

Amazon.com
I Am Sam makes you laugh, cry, and recoil all at the same time. Perhaps no other film of recent memory has epitomized the shameless sentimentality of Hollywood as succinctly as director and screenwriter Jessie Nelson's story of a mentally challenged man fighting to retain custody of his 7-year-old daughter. Sam (Sean Penn), who has the mental age of 7, wipes down tables at a Los Angeles Starbucks and takes good care of his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning), who was left with him shortly after birth by a homeless woman. Sam has gotten by just fine with a little help from his friends, including his eccentric neighbor (Dianne Wiest) and a lovable group of similarly challenged friends, but a series of misunderstandings leaves Sam fighting to get Lucy back from the state. Sam's lawyer, Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), is an overly ambitious woman whose life is soon transformed by proximity to Sam's brimming humanity. Sean Penn is, as usual, wholeheartedly committed to his role and turns in an admirable, if overtly affected performance. However, I Am Sam, with all its earnest charm, reaches an emblematic low when Sam, a character apparently devoid of any authentic sentiment, delivers a courtroom speech memorized from Kramer vs. Kramer as the film's finale. --Fionn Meade

From The New Yorker
An awkwardly sincere attempt to come to terms with an impossible subject. Sam (Sean Penn), a retarded Santa Monica man, has a brilliant daughter (Dakota Fanning) who reaches the age of seven and begins to surpass him; the authorities want to separate them, but father and daughter don't want to be separated. Penn, openmouthed, starting and stammering, plunges deep into Sam's confusions and his innate good-heartedness. The trouble is, Penn doesn't know when to stop: he does every poetic movement or despairing emotion again and again. The writer-director Jessie Nelson also suffers from a surfeit of goodness. In portraying the entire way of life of Sam and his "challenged" friends, she overtaxes the audience's kindest impulses. Michelle Pfeiffer shows up as Sam's high-strung lawyer-a beautiful striver, brilliant and accomplished, but an unhappy wreck. Pfeiffer is so likable in the role that she almost saves the movie. Almost. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

From the Back Cover
Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Penn give career-defining performances in this humorous and heart-warming film about a mentally challenged father who enlists the aid of a high-powered attorney to help him regain custody of his daughter. An all-star supporting cast and a spectacular soundtrack complete this unforgettable story of life, love and laughter.