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An aspiring Irish actor and his family illegally immigrate in the United States with the dreams of the father breaking into the New York City theatrical scene. Once they arrive in the big city, they move into a flop house and try to make it truly their home. While they struggle to fit in their new country, the family finds new friends like the reclusive neighbor, Mateo, who provides help in the most unexpected ways in America.
Jim Sheridan's autobiographical film, IN AMERICA, begins as Irish immigrants Johnny (Paddy Considine), his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton), and their two daughters drive their wood-paneled station wagon across the Canadian border and into the United States. As they enter New York City at night, 10-year-old Christy (Emma Bolger) records the lights, skyscrapers, and general excitement on her camcorder. Her little sister Ariel (Sarah Bolger) coos at all there is to see, and the whole family is filled with new hope. With no money to live on, they settle into the top floor of a flophouse tenement inhabited by transvestit...
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es and drug addicts. The dilapidated building is at first intimidating, but with a little redecorating and a change of perspective, the family turns it into a bohemian paradise. While Johnny goes to auditions, trying to get his break as an actor, Sarah works at the ice cream shop down the street and the girls go to Catholic school. A budding friendship with their ominous neighbor, Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), brings a much-needed spirituality to the family's happy but difficult struggle to survive. A beautiful and touching film about the risks that families take striving for a colorful, successful, happy life, IN AMERICA is above all a tribute to New York City in all its glory: its diversity of people and opportunity, its violence and grit, and its sometimes overwhelming energy.
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After chronicling various chapters of Irish history in such films as In the Name of the Father and The Field, writer/director Jim Sheridan turns his lens upon his own family's experiences immigrating to the United States in the aptly titled In America. The loosely autobiographical script centers on Johnny (Paddy Considine), a young actor sneaking his wife, Sarah (Samantha Morton), and daughters, Christy and Ariel (real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger, respectively), over the Canadian border in the hopes of jump-starting his career in New York City. They soon find that America is not the land of boundless oppor...
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tunity, however, as they move into a dank, dilapidated apartment building populated by drug dealers, transients, and thugs. Johnny doesn't snag auditions as easily as he may have hoped, and he and Sarah are forced to take meager jobs after spending their savings on food, rent, and utilities. Still in grief over the untimely death of their toddler son back in Ireland, the couple find their relationship further strained by the pressures of life in the city. Little by little, however, things begin to look up for the fiercely protective family unit, especially when they befriend an eccentric artist neighbor named Mateo (Djimon Hounsou). In America saw its world premiere at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and played to enthusiastic crowds at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival before its theatrical release in the fall of that year.
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Johnny en Sarah emigreren met hun twee dochters vanuit Ierland naar New York zodat Johnny zijn droom als acteur kan verwezenlijken. Ze hebben het erg moeilijk in de V.S. maar hun kracht en hulpvaardigheid tegenover mensen zal ze erdoor moeten slepen.