Jim Sheridan's In America, the story of an Irish family's first months in the United States, is a warm but slight film about the immigrant experience in the U.S., the writer-director's love letter to New York and to his own family. Co-written by Sheridan and his two real-life daughters, America stars Paddy Considine as Sheridan stand-in Johnny Sullivan, a struggling actor who brings his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) and their daughters Ariel and Christy (Sarah and Emma Bolger) to the U.S. after losing a son to a brain tumor. The death of young Frankie (named after Sheridan's brother, who died of the same ailment) hangs over the family as they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings, in the process befriending an eccentric painter-neighbor named Mateo (Djimon Hounsou).
Despite the tragedy that follows the Sullivans, America is a film about triumph and hopefulness, and Sheridan doesn't skimp on the sentimentality. There are plenty of obvious moments, and the story follows a rather predictable course. But Sheridan keeps a light hand over the proceedings, and he's helped by the Bolger sisters, who effortlessly inhabit the roles of the two girls who hold the family together. In America really is the perfect holiday film, a celebration of the power of family, even if it's at the expense of a little bit of reality.