MOVIE REVIEW : Opposites Attract in ‘Sam and Sarah’

There’s a great deal of sweetness and caring in “Sam and Sarah” (at the AFI USA Independent Showcase at the Monica 4-Plex),” a story of a budding relationship between two homeless Chicagoans, but there’s also a certain amount of self-indulgence. That’s because in collaborating on the script with director John Strysik, star Robert Rothman couldn’t resist providing himself with lots of showy scenes.

True, as Sam, he’s playing a self-reliant yet traumatized Vietnam War vet who can’t help sounding off all the time, but Rothman all too clearly loves these opportunities to grandstand. In the most gratuitous instance he has Sam recite--and none too well at that--Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, and a crowd of people eagerly open their wallets in enthralled gratitude, an unlikely occurence.

More seriously, there’s so much emphasis on Sam we really don’t get to know as well as we should the almost pathologically shy Sarah (Kathleen Sykora), who takes Sam to her cubbyhole in an abandoned building after he has been beaten in trying to protect her from a gang attack. Sarah has withdrawn deeply into herself after losing her family and home in a fire but finds herself responding to Sam’s brave gesture and his genuine interest in her.

Although “Sam and Sarah” is somewhat askew, it nonetheless is effective in revealing the plight of the homeless through Sam and Sarah’s highly tentative friendship. Sarah doesn’t get nearly as much screen time and attention as Sam does, but the film is more balanced in its depiction of what the homeless endure--from demeaning, indifferent bureaucratic red tape to encounters with individuals who are genuinely concerned.

(The film makes the subtle but crucial point that it’s all but impossible to help homeless individuals like Sarah until they are willing to be helped.)

There’s a cinematic fluidity to the film for all of Sam’s theatricality, and Rothman and Sykora, who effectively underplays to Rothman’s bombast, are well-cast, as are Michael Bacarella as Sam’s new employer, a hearty Greek coffee-shop proprietor, and Carolyn Kodes as a savvy TV newscaster, a role that for once is not spoofed. The craggy, rangy Rothman, a veteran of theater and TV, has a commanding presence and charisma; all he needs is a tougher director.

‘Sam and Sarah’

Robert Rothman: Sam

Kathleen Sykora: Sarah

Michael Bacarella: Astro

Carolyn Kodes: Terry Quinn

A Full Circle Films presentation. Director John Strysik. Executive producers Marvin Silverman, Joy Silverman. Screenplay Robert Rothman, Strysik. Cinematographer Michael Goi. Editors Strysik, Goi. Music Craig Snider, Elliott Delman. Production design Thomas B. Mitchell. Sound Diego Trejo. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (for adult themes).