After raising his daughter alone for seven years, coffee house worker, Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) who has a mental age of seven, comes under close scrutiny from social services. When he's deemed an unfit parent due to his condition, he seeks the aid of hotheaded career woman Rita Harrison (Pfeiffer) to fight his battle with the state and win back custody of his young daughter. Like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, Sean Penn has given one of the performances of his career in a movie that well, isn't very good. A standard run of-the-mill Hollywood tearjerker, I Am Sam operates within a series of well-defined and immovable parameters, which are hideously predictable to anyone who has ever encountered one of these types of films before (Exhibit A, your honour: Rain Man). Contrived and formulaic as it undoubtedly is, however, Penn is exceptional in the central role, offering a moving and poignant portrayal of a man caught in circumstances beyond his comprehension. Pfeiffer, on the other hand, just picks up a cheque.
