12-year-old Andy Nichol learns about appearances, tolerance and other concepts when his teacher pairs him with the school's biggest outcast and social pariah to work on a class project, which change the lives of both young men, and their teacher, forever.
A forgettable title and a barely there theatrical release don't do justice to the captivating and nostalgic coming-of-age dramedy "That's What I Am"...
The latest (and by far most sneaky) attempt to slip one of its wrestlers into multiplexes, WWE Films' That's What I Am is surprisingly low on testosterone.
It means to be an earnest, uplifting family film, but the movie evinces a fitful attention span, and director Mike Pavone never comes up with a way to successfully stitch together all its disparate, capital-I issues.
Lessons are learned, bullies get their comeuppance, and every Wonder Years plot device is trotted out for maximum and-I-was-never-the-same-again nostalgia.
That's What I Am isn't a movie, sadly, it's an unreconstructed piece of television and one that's suffused with the values of the US networked shows of yesteryear.
New York Times
April 28, 2011
Mr. Harris's depiction of a saintly, soft-spoken, bow-tie-wearing middle-school teacher lends the movie a moral weight it probably couldn't have summoned had another actor played the role.
AV Club
April 28, 2011
A placard preceding the film's title card assures that it's "inspired by true events," but the note is unnecessary, given the limpness of the narrative arcs. Who would make up such an anticlimactic story?
Since a large portion of the film is taken up with the theme of school bullying, it may have some contemporary relevance, but good intentions do not always a good movie make.
