Best Actress 2003: Samantha Morton in In America

Samantha Morton received her second Oscar nomination for playing Sarah Sullivan in In America. Sarah and her family move to America from Ireland after the death of the youngest child, Frankie. But they discover poverty and suffer greatly though the two parents try to pretend to be happy for the sake of they're two kids.



In America is an awful movie that starts out alright, but gets worse and worse since it becomes unbelievable and heavy handed. Samantha Morton tries to get something out of her role, which is very thin , and she does somewhat. Morton uses her eyes and her face to show how Sarah is feeling and she does it beautifully. Morton also shows us the internal battle going on in Sarah, how she is afraid of dying but is determined to have the baby anyway and how she is struggling with her grief over her dead son. She is also quite good in her scenes with her husband, as both of them are trying to keep the family afloat, both emotionally and financinally. But the problem is that the script never delves deep enough into the character and we never know enough about her or about her relationship with her family. The focus of the film is mostly on the father and the two daughters and there is little development between them and the mother.


But Samantha Morton did to do her best with the material and delivered a subtle, and at times beautiful performance that gets