Great performances do not necessarily make great films.

This is definitely the case with the five-hankie melodrama I Am Sam.

Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) is a mentally challenged father of a seven-year-old daughter.

Little Lucy (Dakota Fanning) was the product of a relationship Sam had with a street girl who used him and his home as a place to crash, but didn't want anything to do with the child she bore.

Sam raised Lucy with the help of his friends and neighbours, but now the girl is reaching her father's mental age, social services wants to put Lucy in a foster home.

Sam turns to Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), a high-powered lawyer, to represent him in the custody battles.

Rita is actually tricked into accepting this charity case, but quickly makes it a priority.

This is mighty heavy stuff, but to their credit, screenwriters Kristine Johnson and Jessie Nelson try to inject as much humour as possible.

Sam has a wonderful childlike sense of humour, which only accentuates Rita's frenetic approach to life. He is the innocent who makes her evaluate her own emotionally challenged life.

Penn is astonishing in this role. He gives Sam so many wonderful and credible physical ticks. Two of Sam's friends are played by mentally-challenged actors and it's almost impossible to separate Penn's remarkable transformation from their reality.

Pfeiffer succeeds in an equally difficult role. Rita starts out as a decidedly unlikable character, so Pfeiffer has to win back the audience's sympathy for a woman who is initially only too eager to dismiss Sam as being unworthy of her talents.

Fanning is a genuine find. The young girl is as natural as her veteran co-stars.

Then there's the story itself.

Johnson and Nelson would have us believe it is in Lucy's best interests to stay with Sam rather than a foster home where she could receive intellectual as well as emotional nourishment. What the prosecutor has to say makes sense, but the film needs a few villains and he's the major one.

There are shades of Rain Man in I Am Sam in that both films want to bring us into the lives of people whom society tends to shut away.

Sam is a wonderful person. He has triumphed over his disability, but that qualifies him more as a parental influence rather than a single parent.

I Am Sam is an effective tearjerker. It's so cleverly maudlin and manipulative, it's bound to catch the viewer off guard. Penn, Pfeiffer and Fanning could all have found themselves with Oscar nominations had their film been as honest and insightful as their performances. (More on: I Am Sam).

(This film is rated AA)

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