Sam

I happened upon this lovely film by chance and am very glad I did.

Natalie Knepp is absolutely wonderful as the former horrible man turned lovely woman. She is a rising star and I shall be watching her future roles with interest.

All the characters were believable and well played. The story, though done many times before was given a fresh look and just enough empathy to tug the heartstrings.

The usual clichés,though there,were not done to death and the metamorphosis from slug to beautiful butterfly was lovely to watch.

A pretty film indeed.

I've given this movie one more star than I might otherwise have because, despite its flaws, I really enjoyed this one a lot.

The only reason I saw this movie in the first place is because after watching Goodbye Charlie (1964) I wanted to see all the remakes for comparison. I found and watched three true remakes and eight similarly premised movies that I wouldn't call remakes. Of this dozen movies (including the original), I liked Sam the best by far. Natalie Knepp really sold the female version of the main character as a man suddenly in a woman's body. What's more she sold it while making the role likeable. And, she made her basically despicable character extremely amusing and likeable despite her flaws. It was easy to care how things turned out for her. Sein Kleier, Sara Scott, and Brock Harris were particularly good in their roles as well. And, none of the acting was bad. But, Natalie was the true stand-out.

That all being said, I can't help but find fault as well. The office environment, while played for laughs, is unbelievable in this day and age. Seymour and Lulu are just a bit too silly. While Brock Harris had his character pegged, he really needed to have the same hair and eye color as Natalie for one of the plot points to work.

The movie is unrated, but I would mostly call it PG13. Older kids should enjoy it safely. There is some profanity, but it's infrequent compared to a lot of movies.

This film starts incredibly slowly. The camera work and lighting are good, but if it weren't for that, it would play like a college film project. The dialogue is slow, and predictable, with unnecessary pauses and characters feeling very 2 dimensional. The pacing was painful at the beginning, which had me reaching for the remote just looking for a scene change. Once Natalie enters the picture however, the energy improves, though the pace and timing never fully recover.

Fortunately Natalie's energy and interesting character choices made this film entertaining enough (at least relative the the price I paid) to see the movie through to the end.

In the end, despite its reasonable-budget looking visual style, a well acted female lead, and beautiful cityscape cinematography worthy of a much better production, this movie is a slow, occasionally funny, but largely forgettable comedy that will have you wondering what else you could have done with the last 2 hours of your life.

Didn't like it at first, but stick with it-it keeps getting better! The transformation from so-so to good is surprising. Glad I didn't abandon like I was tempted to. It's worth watching. Enjoy!

The premise is hardly original, but it is developed here in a competent, direct and uplifting way.

Many of the scenes and much of the characterization are definitely on the unsubtle side, but I think that works well in the end. The characters are well established and grow in interesting and convincing ways. I particularly liked the interactions between Margaret and Samantha.