I Am David

Name: I Am David
Director: Paul Feig
Released: 2003

Paul Feig

2003

Synopsis

Based on Anne Holm's acclaimed young adult novel North to Freedom, I Am David chronicles the struggles of a 12-year-old boy who manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own -- through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark and a compass to help get him there.

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Recommendations

70
Variety
An unusually intelligent adventure film scaled for younger viewers, which never leaves adults behind.
70
TV Guide Magazine
While probably not suitable for the wee ones, older kids and most adults will love this exciting and heartfelt adventure of one boy's survival during the darkest days of post-war Europe.
67
Entertainment Weekly
The movie meets the requirements of the "Life Is Beautiful" school; those loyal to the tougher, more stringent Osama academy of realism need not apply.
50
Dallas Observer
I Am David is by far the best after-school special to hit the big screen this season.
50
Chicago Tribune
The beautifully shot but dramatically strained I Am David falls prey to the defect of all poor road movies: In gluing together unbelievable but convenient episodes with sugary sentimentality, it loses most of its credibility.
40
The Hollywood Reporter
The picture is essentially a tearjerker, with little originality or insight.
40
The A.V. Club
While it's not always necessary for filmmakers to relate that closely to their material, Feig's marked distance from the story of a sullen boy who parts the Iron Curtain may account for its generic artlessness.
40
Chicago Reader
Unfortunately writer-director Paul Feig has a weakness for artiness in general and hokey art movies in particular, and the overall sluggishness of this 2003 adaptation starring Ben Tibber makes such devices as slow-motion seem like mannered rhetoric.