INFECTIOUS

IN AMERICA (2002) by Jim Sheridan is my favorite film of the past decade.

The film is based on Sheridan’s own experience moving his young family to New York City in the 1970s.

A family film in the truest sense of the word, Sheridan and his daughter Naomi wrote the screenplay together. As such, the story is told through the eyes (and video camera) of the family’s eldest daughter...and her gaze is most often turned to her unemployed actor father.

This is a film set “in America.” An (illegal) immigrant story in America, no less. But its no polemic. America offers opportunity, but it also offers Hell’s Kitchen, poverty, and a terrifying next door neighbor who rants and rages as he paints (Djimon Hounsou).

See IN AMERICA. Watch it with your family. Let it infect you. No other film has both broke and mended my heart like this film.