SHENNA MEA O.

ALAMA

BEED 2B

The movie “I am Sam” is not just a movie, this is a life changing experience about how
much fatherhood can change you and how difficult it is for someone living in this society with the
present of impairment. The way they show him not as an immature man baby like how many
people think autistic people act, but as a kind, friendly, loving man who jumps goes through so
much emotional whiplash and deals with so many things just to have his daughter again is so
amazing. Not only that, but the lawyer is a great character and is shown in a number of very
interesting way. At first, she was proof of how much someone has to go through just to see their
child, and then she was a way to show how autistic people perceive the American court system.
And then she's a parallel to Sam as a fellow parent who would do anything for their child.
Moreover, the character seemed to encompass virtually every stereotype of a person with
autism. “I Am Sam,” with the main character Sean Penn plays Sam Dawson, a father with
mental retardation raising his young daughter, Lucy, who is developing typically and whose
cognitive abilities are rapidly eclipsing those of her father, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his lawyer.
Dianne Wiest, Loretta Devine, Richard Schiff, and Laura Dern appear in supporting roles as a
friend of Sam. The main issue of the movie was that the main character Sam has an Intellectual
disability and he is struggling to take care of his daughter. Intellectual disability is a disability that
interferes with a person's cognitive abilities and the functions they use in everyday life. In the
movie, The conflict starts when Lucy turns seven. She starts to ask Sam questions about life
and about his condition. When she asks him why he’s different from other daddies, he can only
say sorry. She responds with a comforting reassurance which goes, "Don’t be sorry. I’m lucky.
Nobody else’s daddy comes to the park." As she enters school, people become concerned with
Sam’s condition and its effect on Lucy’s learning and future. With Lucy’s welfare in mind, they
try to take her away from Sam and put her under someone else’s care. Not one to give his
daughter up, Sam fights for her with the help of friends and a lawyer, Rita (played by Michelle
Pfeiffer) whose help he gets through persistence, determination and luck.
 One thing that amazes me about this movie is how it was able to build up the character
of Sam’s lawyer Rita, and somehow incorporate her into the father-daughter plot. It’s also
incredible how two very different people are able to help each other and in a way, help
themselves. Rita is a self-absorbed, selfish, often irate lawyer who only cares about her
reputation and money. Luckily, Sam, who randomly picks her out from the yellow pages, is in
the right place at the right time. When her colleagues who despise her see her talking to Sam,
she decides to take his case for free, something totally out of her character. At the outset, she
does this to prove to them that she has a charitable side despite her bitchiness. In the end, she
learns more about herself and admits to Sam that she got more out of their relationship than he
probably did. As she tries to save a relationship, she understands more about her own life and
what really matters. The lesson "I Am Sam" wants to teach us is, "All you need is love." I Am
Sam is not only a story about love; it also shows us how all of us can feel helpless and useless
but it is how we treat challenges that will determine how we fare against our weaknesses or the
circumstances we are faced with. Sam, intellectually challenged as he is, doesn’t see this as a
hindrance to living his life to the fullest and giving all that he can to Lucy. Despite his disability,
he tries hard to accomplish things and learn more things. Sam might not be intelligent but he
knows what he wants and fights for it. What he lacks "up there," he makes up with his heart. He
may not be able to teach Lucy algorithms or chemical equations but he can teach her about the
lessons that one can never learn from books: lessons on life and love. Too often we focus on
the intellectual aspect of things that we forget that what makes us people of worth and value is
what’s in our hearts and not how much we know.