Sam loves Lucy, his 7 year old daughter with all he has to offer. But Lucy is passing Sam's intelligence capacity, as she is extremely gifted & bright. So is the judgement to be made - what more can Sam offer ?
This is a touching film, with some outstanding performances. Sean Penn is as usual, brilliant, as Sam. Reading the synopsis, this could have degenerated into another 'Forrest Gump', but never falls into the cheap pitfalls that that film suffered from. In a surprising role, Michelle Pfieffer's high powered lawyer is an emotional cripple, the counter-balance to the Penn's simpleton, but in extraordinary manner, her character is equally handicapped: unable to deal with family, allowing work to dominate her life .
This is a film that lingers in the memory. Skilfully directed, well scripted & has a brilliant soundtrack of Beatles tunes, reworked by some of today’s most fascinating musicians & artists.
Somewhat appropriately the message of this film is clear. To quote John Lennon: love is all you need. Tim P.

VIDEO
The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is generally very good, but falls down in some areas. This is a nice sharp transfer for the bulk of the film with some exceptional detail at times. There are the several scenes where the background transfer is very grainy and really noticeable.
Shadow detail was generally very good throughout.
The colour palette is used well to convey a warm feeling in most scenes, and a cold feeling in the courtroom but this is still perfectly saturated. While the intended effect is good it looks drained in some scenes, which may be attributed to the grain.
There were no MPEG artefacts and only some very insignificant film artefacts, which were difficult to spot.
Generally the transfer is very good with only some minor problems that stick out a little too much.
The layer change at 90.21 is almost undetectable.

AUDIO
The Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks are very similar in this transfer, in fact they are difficult to tell apart. Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand. The surround channels are used quite frequently but are never a great presence, just enough to provide ambience to the soundtrack and directional effects in the film. I was actually impressed with this subtle yet effective use of the surrounds. Similarly the LFE channel was only minimally brought in to play in the soundtrack and this is all that was required of it.
The soundtrack was also very inspiring with the inclusion of some great Beatles tracks, Black Crowes, and a very impressive score from John Powell.
Overall the audio track is well mixed and quite impressive.

EXTRAS