Over the course of four unflinching portraits of stubborn, headstrong Irish antiheroes -- My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, and The Boxer -- no one could ever accuse writer/director Jim Sheridan of viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. That is, until In America, the filmmaker's effective but sentimental account of one family's not-so-legal immigration to New York City. No matter how many incidents in Sheridan's semi-autobiographical script are purportedly true-to-life, as presented, many of them seem unbelievable, among them: that two parents would let their daughters freely roam the halls of their seedy, drug-addict-infested tenement building; that a father would wager his family's savings on a carnival game; and that an unlikely benefactor would rescue said family from financial ruin. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- these implausibilities, In America plays more along the lines of sweet-natured fable than gritty family drama, an observation only enhanced by the film's scene-stealing pair of child actors, sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger. As the not-so-sensible parents, Paddy Considine is alternately endearing and infuriating, and Samantha Morton inappropriately seethes for most of the film's running time. Sheridan intermittently finds the right tone for the material -- wistful, bittersweet nostalgia -- but one can't help but think that if he had been more in tune with his impish daughter characters, In America would have been classic instead of just fine.
