This movie is so insulting in its depiction of mentally handicapped people it makes "The Other Sister" look like a lovingly crafted documentary about Down's syndrome. Aren't retarded people cute? Aren't they earnest? Why... they're almost like us real people!<br /><br />Sean Penn plays a sweet autistic/retarded man who has somehow fathered a child (when and how and with whom? never really explained) and Michelle Pfeiffer plays the cliched overworked, no-time-for-her-family, badly-needs-to-learn-what's-important-in-life-from-a-retarded-person career woman lawyer who is shamed into defending Penn's character in court when he is threatened with having his daughter taken away from him. It goes on forever, for no reason. Top it all off with one of those child actors who speaks as if she's forty-five years old playing the daughter, and you're all set to run at the screen with a machete. Penn and Pfeiffer surely must have thought they were earning their places in Heaven when they signed on to overact in this condescending, absurd, overwrought trash. Or maybe they did it to win prizes. If there is a God, they will be denied anything shiny for their collective hubris.<br /><br />I don't want to overstate how offensive this thing is, but seeing this movie is tantamount to saying, "I hate retarded people".