I Am Sam @ Amazon

Quiz: What’s the quickest, most-sure way to win accolades and rack up awards? If you’re stumped, ask Sean Penn. He knows!

At least, he thought he did. What must have been envisioned as a brave, poignant take on mental retardation was almost unanimously received as a manipulative, opportunistic tear-jerker by a brutal press. The near-universal critical hatred of I Am Sam makes its extremely high FCQ of 53.56 (Film Contentiousness Quotient, details here) quite surprising. A lot of people loved it. Not just “liked” — this film is loved by a significant portion of the Criticker community.

Of course a lot of people hated it, agreeing with Charles Taylor of Salon who said:

“I don’t know the last time I’ve seen so disgraceful a display from a talented actor. It used to be that actors playing the mentally retarded suffered from a discretion that was its own kind of bad taste. They tended to downplay mannerisms and distortions of speech, and the unintentional message was that retarded people are unpleasant to watch. Penn delves into mannerisms and vocal distortions with an appalling eagerness.”

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Here are a couple battling opinions from Criticker users.

MistyMorn: “Sean Penn is worth his weight in gold in the little gem of a film. The plot and acting are perfect. Dare you not to shed a tear….”

ted: “What a trainwreck. Atrocious cinematography. Ludicrous storyline. Very heavy-handed.”

Last week’s poll has been closed, and by one vote, you have deemed Brotherhood of the Wolf GREAT!

And just to prove that we don’t always have to disagree, here are two more films that are the opposite of contentious:
Unanimously Crap (FCQ 0.74): Date Movie. Who in God’s name even goes to watch these movies?
Unanimously Sweet (FCQ 2.94): Yojimbo. A masterpiece from Akira Kurosawa.