BOOK REVIEW:A REQUIREMENT IN OUR CLASS

Our professor told us to make a book review using our blog. May I request to all bloggers to please give your comments, suggestions, recommendation.Thank You and Godbless.

Synopsis

Sam Dawson (Sean Penn), an autistic man living in Los Angeles, is single-handedly raising his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning), whom he fathered from a homeless woman who wanted nothing to do with Lucy and left him the day of her birth. Although Sam provides a loving and caring environment for the 7-year-old Lucy, she soon surpasses her father's mental capacity. Questions arise about Sam’s ability to care for Lucy and a custody case is brought to court. Sam is a man with a mental age of 7 who is well adjusted and has a great support system consisting of four similarly developmentally disabled men. His neighbor Annie (Dianne Wiest), a piano-player and agoraphobic, befriends Sam and takes care of Lucy when Sam cannot. Sam works at Starbucks busing tables. Sam is popular with the customers, whom he addresses by name and favorite coffee. His job gets difficult when Lucy starts grabbing objects, making a woman spill iced coffee down her shirt. In a humorous, but innocent exchange, Sam tries to remove an ice cube from the startled woman's cleavage. Sam then brings Lucy to his neighbor and baby Lucy croons, "Annie!" Sam says, "Her first word was Annie." Flustered but flattered, she retorts, "And people worry you aren't smart," and agrees to function asLucy's babysitter. Lucy is as precocious as Sam is backwards. Sam loves reading Green Eggs and Ham to her, but when she starts reading "real hard" books like Stellaluna, she balks at reading the word "different" because she doesn't want to be smarter than her dad. She knows he's different, "not like other dads", but that's all right with her because he is loving, taking her to the park and to International House of Pancakes (every Wednesday, because "Wednesday is IHOP night"). When they decide to go to Big Boy for a change, Sam causes a disturbance because he cannot get the kind of French pancakes he is accustomed to. At the school Halloween party, he dresses as one of the Beatles but embarrasses hisdaughter by drawing undue attention. Other kids tease her, calling her dad a "retard". She tells one boy that she is adopted. This causes a crisis at her birthday party, which results in an unexpected visit from a social worker who takesLucy away. A judge allows him only two supervised, 2-hour visits per week. Sam's friends recommend that he hire Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer), a lawyer. He shows up at her office and starts spelling out his situation while she juggles coffee orders to her assistant, Patricia. Socially, Sam is rather high-functioning—more together in many ways than his high-class, respected lawyer whose marriage is falling apart and whose son hates her. Sam surprises Rita at a party. Stunned, she announces that she's taking his case pro bono, because others see her as cold and heartless. Rita begrudgingly works with Sam to help him keep his parental rights, but chaos arises when Lucy convinces Sam to help her run away from the foster home she is being kept in during the trial. Over the course of the trial, Sam gets a new job at Pizza Hut and Annie leaves her apartment for the first time in years. Sam also helps Rita with her family problems, and helps her to realize how much her son really means to her. During the trial, however, Sam breaks down, after being convinced that he is not capable of taking care ofLucy. Meanwhile, Lucy is placed with a foster family who plan to adopt her. Lucy often runs away from her foster parents in the middle of the night to go see Sam, who moved into a larger apartment closer to her. In the end, the foster family who planned on adoptingLucy lets Sam have custody of her. Sam says that Lucy still needs a mother and asks if the foster mother would like to help raise Lucy. The movie ends with Lucy's soccer game where Sam is the referee. In attendance are Lucy 's former foster family, the newly divorced Rita and her son with whom Rita has renewed her relationship, along with Annie and Sam's other friends.

Reaction:

Parenting is a very difficult but also very enjoyable that may happened to our life.

A man with mental disorder needs so much attention, but Sam is different. He takes care of his daughter when his wife abandoned them. When I saw this movie tears fell down on my eyes and my heart felt like it was cut by a knife. Raising a child is not easy especially in the condition of Sam who has an intellectual equivalency of 7.How can he manage and take care of his daughter if his situation is dire?
The movie is very inspiring. I would like to share this to all that we are not deprived of achieving what our heart truly desires. I also found out that even if Sam has disabilities he should not be given special treatment and should be treated as you would treat others. Once again it made me cry, it made me realize that whatever our parents are, we should love them the way they love us despite of all the challenges that God gave to us. I realize that every tick of the clock and every breath that we take is significant. I must say that we should value the rights of individual and respect each other’s life.I will take this opportunity to address this story to those who abandoned their children.

Life is meaningful and it is a gift from our Almighty, some are fortunate to have a baby while some are hopeless to have a baby, to those parents who abandoned their children, today is the right time to let your children feel that they are important and bestow upon them unconditional love. I must truly say that Sam is a brave and smart man as even with his situation he is still able to give his full love and affection to his daughter. Even with his disability, he still gave his 100% love to his daughter. I wish that all fathers are like Sam.