"I Am David"... I Am A CRYBABY!

picture from www.killermovies.com/ gallery/iamdavid/poster.html
Bawled my eyes out at this movie! Adapted from a novel by Ann Holm, this movie is about a 12-year-old boy (an endearing-despite-zero-smiling Ben Tieber) who escapes a German or communist (unclear in the movie) concentration camp carrying a sealed envelope with instructions to get to Denmark. The interesting plot in the movie is that the boy, David, has known nothing but life inside the camp, having been separated with his parents and kept in the camp since he was a 4-year old.

picture from www.theflickchicks.com/ flick-chicks/pages
David travels from East Europe towards his destination completely on foot, carrying only a compass and a loaf of bread, with communist soldiers, dogs, and bratty schoolboys at his heels. All the things that he sees, the people he meets, the stories he becomes part of--they all figure in his newfound struggle in the "free" world, a world that, although "free" or outside the camp he grew up in, is still, for David at least, as much to be mistrusted as the prisoned world he has grown into.
picture from www.themoviebox.net/. ../main-page.html
Not just about David's escape and running through forests and fields or away from soldiers of several nationalities, the movie is also about finding hope and help even in the darkest of places. It reminded me of a line I heard in a (of all things) Harry Potter movie: "Happiness can be found even in the darkness of nights... If only one remembers to turn on the lights." Most touching is David himself, starting out with nothing but fear and distrust in his eyes, he unfolds before our eyes as he learns how to smile with his mouth, and later on allow this smile to reach his eyes. By the end of the movie I was crying like a baby. It didn't help that it was 3 o'clock in the morning.
picture from www.hollywoodjesus.com/ movie/i_am_david/11.jpg
Oh, and the movie has Jim Caviezel in a special role, too. But with everything that's going on, what with the boy running, the grass on the Italian fields swaying, the whole European scenery in all its splendor on your screen, it would not be hard to totally ignore any Hollywood powerhouse in this movie. A "little" movie this may be called by some but in my book it's a giant. Best to watch it with girlfriends, girlfriends, and with a box of tissue close by.