I Am Sam

...Penn does wonders with the film's preposterous material.

Sam loves his daughter more than anyone else, and she loves him, but it will take more than love for him to see her through grade school and adolescence and out into the world.

...I Am Sam is a feelgood crowdpleaser.

...standout is Dakota Fanning, who, in her first significant motion picture part, manages to be irrepressibly cute without becoming irritating.

Penn, whose edgy filmography could disincline Ma and Pa Mid-America from seeing this post-holiday feel-gooder, inhabits his character so completely that you forget this is the same consummate actor who starred in gritty indies...