I Am Sam is a truly awful title for an only marginally awful movie, which is to say that despite appearances, this latest Hollywood take on the retarded is not a complete disaster.

There are two reasons for this: a) Sean Penn is Sean Penn, even when he's playing (and often failing to play) a man with the intelligence of a seven-year-old fighting for custody of his seven-year-old daughter, and b) a little girl named Dakota Fanning, perhaps the most adorable girl ever burned onto celluloid. As the title character's daughter, she elevates every scene she appears in, making the film at least a little more tolerable than the usual Hollywood handicapped-trumping-adversity trash (see Nell, Rain Man, The Other Sister, Bill, etc.).

Still, this doesn't mean you should see I Am Sam. A shamelessly hokey tearjerker, I Am Sam is, like the other films mentioned above, borderline offensive, and in the end, fairly worthless.

That said, however, if you do see it, pay attention to that Dakota Fanning. Like Haley Joel Osment's performance in The Sixth Sense, her work stuns you with its thoughtfulness, making your squandered hours a bit easier to swallow.