Relationship Spotlight: The Sullivans (In America)

There’s all kinds of stuff to love about this movie, but I think what keeps me coming back is the interactions between the different members of the family.  When the Sullivans arrive in America, they’ve been heavily knocked about by tragedy, and while each is dealing with it in their own way, there’s no way for any of them to get through it without leaning on each other (some spoilers.)

I wouldn’t say the film precisely centers around the kids, but it does often view the family through them, so we’ll start there.  Christy, the young narrator, considers herself the family protector.  As the older sister, she naturally spends a lot of time looking after Ariel – explaining things to her, comforting her when she’s upset, finding ways to distract her when something troubling is happening – but in her mind, she looks after her parents a lot, too.  As a believer in magic wishes, she uses her allotted three on the family’s behalf, relying on their “power” to get the family out of difficult situations. 

Little sister Ariel isn’t nearly so wrapped up in duty.  As the youngest, she’s the least aware of the family’s worries and the least affected by her brother Frankie’s death.  That’s least affected, not unaffected – it’s clear, when a family friend is unable to comfort her with the platitude that “going to heaven” and “going home” are the same thing, that the loss has touched her as well.  It comes out in small ways here and there, but for the most part, Ariel is simply resilient and adaptable to the new world in which she finds herself.  She takes pleasure in simple things, and while she too thinks she can help through magic (such as with the “healing powers” in the lemon drops she gives Sarah,) it’s more about the older members of the family going along with it for her sake, whereas Christy never seeks reassurance about the magic she employs on the family’s behalf.

Sarah, the mother, is often the soother, the one smoothing things over when the seas get choppy.  She finds games for the girls to distract them from their troubles and alternately comforts Johnny when he’s spinning out and gets in his face when he lets the kids see his fears.  She holds stubbornly to hope, optimism as a battle cry, even as she’s still reeling from the death of her son.  She’s the one who most overtly pretends to be happy.

That leaves us with the father Johnny.  Of the four, he has the most tenuous handle on things.  He swallowed his grief, and now the sadness and fear he can’t express looks like numbness, occasionally bursting out in fits of anger.  He struggles to be the provider, getting the family what they need any way he knows how, and he buckles when Sarah or the girls intimate that that sort of providing isn’t enough; they also need an emotional availability that he no longer knows how to foster.

With Christy, Sarah, and Johnny, it’s interesting to watch how deeply all three are affected by Frankie’s death.  Each works so hard to put on a brave face for the rest of the family – Christy by being the protector, Sarah by remaining relentlessly hopeful, and Johnny by cutting himself off from his pain – but it’s that very concealment that make each one’s individual grief that much harder to bear.  All three feel responsible in their own way for Frankie’s death, and all three largely carry that guilt alone.  It’s only by dropping their respective pretenses of being all right that any of them are able to get what they really need – honest, uncomplicated comfort from the others.

In America (2002, PG-13)

I rewatched this movie not long ago and was reminded of how much I love it.  It’s a really lovely drama pulling in themes of family and community, as well as tinges of magic realism, and it’s carried by a number of fine performances.  A great viewing experience every time I watch it!

The Sullivan family has just moved from Ireland to New York, taking a loft in a rundown tenement.  The whole family – father Johnny, mother Sarah, and daughters Christy and Ariel – are all still dealing in different ways with the loss of Frankie, the youngest Sullivan.  As they adjust to life in their new country, feelings of grief and guilt continue to follow them, but New York offers new additions to their family as well.  In particular, they develop a strong bond with a solitary artist living in their building, a fellow immigrant named Mateo.

The utterly-charming film, narrated by 10-year-old Christy, moves fluidly between moving family drama, light fish-out-of-water comedy, and suggestions of the supernatural rooted in childish fantasy and both Irish and West African(?) mythos (it’s never specified where Mateo is from, but Djimon Hounsou, who plays him, is from Benin.)  The story takes us through the course of the Sullivans’ lives, showing the excitement, frustration, and challenge of adjusting to life in America in small and large matters alike.  Whether they’re trying to have their first trick-or-treating experience or dealing with a family health crisis, we see how they’re a family still trying to figure out how they fit together now that they’ve lost one of their own, and even though Frankie isn’t a physical character in the movie, his presence is continually felt by the hole his death left in the lives of his parents and sisters.

I won’t claim it’s perfect – some of the plot beats are a little on-the-nose, and I can see how some might think it’s too earnest for its own good – but I love it.  All the characters are really lovable in their own damaged ways, the direction is simple but effective, and throughout, the emotion is as pure as it is strong.

And yeah, the acting game is totally on point.  Going into the film for the first time, I remember that the only actor I was familiar with was Samantha Morton (who I’d previously seen in Minority Report.)  She’s excellent as Sarah, a heartbroken woman trying to hold life together for the sake of her kids.  I love Paddy Considine’s intriguing performance as Johnny, who felt hollowed-out after Frankie’s death and now struggles to be the dad he used to.  Emma Bolger’s Ariel is adorable and winning, and her real-life sister Sarah Bolger (who later went on to play Aurora on Once Upon a Time and, more recently, Jade on Into the Badlands) does a superb job carrying the film as Christy.  Finally, there’s Djimon Hounsou, by turns understated and electric as Mateo.  Each performer is fantastic in their own right, and when they interact with one another onscreen, magic happens.

Warnings

Sexual content, swearing, drinking and drug references, brief violence, and thematic elements.