In America (2003)

Affecting, but obvious, tearjerker. The best thing about the movie is the girls. Little Ariel is a little charmer.

Most of the story is told from the point of view of the older daughter. In this context, the film's an all-out winner. Then the magical things that happen are there because they are her explanations. But when we move outside of this, to areas into which her eyes can't have peered, conversations she couldn't have heard, things get a bit sketchy...and a bit less wondrous. I found myself thinking "yeah, right" when the filmmaker, rather than Christy, was pushing the bull.

B