In America

March 17, 2012 - 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Join our film curator Jeffrey Gorney and film critic Nancy Keefe Rhodes
for a discussion following the screening!

Following the tragic death of their two-year-old son Frankie, Irish couple Johnny and Sarah Sullivan and their remaining two offspring, 10 year old Christy Sullivan and 5 year old Ariel Sullivan, emigrate illegally to the United States via Canada with little in their pockets. Their final destination is Manhattan where Johnny hopes to work as a stage actor. They move into a unit in a run town tenement housed primarily with drug addicts, transvestites and one tenant coined “the man who screams”. They do whatever they can to eke out a supportive family environment in this difficult situation, the support which ultimately extends to those around them, most specifically “the screamer” who turns out to be an African-American artist named Mateo with AIDS. But the memory of Frankie hangs over the family in good and bad ways, especially as Sarah learns she’s pregnant.

Written and directed by Jim Sheridan, and based on his own experiences as an Irish immigrant in America, the film chronicles the first year struggles and triumphs of an Irish couple, and their two young daughters. Johnny (Paddy Considine) is out of work and while he struggles to find parts as an actor, his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) must take a job at a nearby ice cream parlor until she finds employment as a teacher. They must scrounge every penny and sell their car, to pay the rent on their shabby, rundown apartment in a building inhabited mostly by vagrants.

Written and Directed by Jim Sheridan in 2002 (105 min)

Note – the real Sullivan family made their way to New York City via Syracuse!

$5 Suggested Donation