By telling the whole story from Hurt's point of view, the movie makes the woman into the stubborn object, the challenge, the problem, which is the very process it wants to object to.
This objection aside, "Children of a Lesser God" is a good but not a great movie. The subject matter is new and challenging, and I was interested in everything the movie had to tell me about deafness.
Unfortunately, the love story is a fairly predictable series of obligatory scenes, made different only by the ways the characters talk to one another. I kept waiting for scenes in which Hurt and Matlin would discuss honestly the problems inherent in their relationship: If she refuses to learn to lip-read, she will be able to exist freely only at the deaf school, which means she is asking him to sacrifice great areas of his own life. Has she thought this through? We don't know.
I also don't know why the movie ignores all of the other ways the deaf have found to communicate. I am writing this review, for example, on a 4-pound, battery-powered portable computer, and I know that for many deaf people these machines represent an excellent substitute for the telephone.
"Children of a Lesser God" is not a movie about deafness, but a love story in which deafness is used as a poignant gimmick. I was reminded of such movies as "Love Story," with its dying heroine; "The Other Side of the Mountain," with its paraplegic heroine, and various other movies in which one of the lovers was blind, lame or from another planet. Most of the movies in this genre seem to treat the handicap as sort of a bonus, conferring greater moral authenticity on the handicapped character. This is a form of subtle condescension.
Despite my argument with the method of "Children of a Lesser God," I found a lot to admire, especially in the acting. The performances are strong and wonderful - not only by Hurt, one of the best actors of his generation, but also by Matlin, a deaf actress who is appearing in her first movie. She holds her own against the powerhouse she's acting with, carrying scenes with a passion and almost painful fear of being rejected and hurt, which is really what her rebellion is about.
Among the supporting characters, Piper Laurie does a good job with a thankless role as Matlin's mother. And I enjoyed the studied cynicism that Philip Bosco put into the role of the old pro who runs the school for the deaf.
"Children of a Lesser God" is a competent, professional docudrama.
It could have been more. Film is the medium of the visual and should be ideally suited to a story about a person who cannot hear, but only if the movie invites us inside that world and invites - even forces - us to an act of empathy. Making a sound movie about the deaf is a little like making a silent movie about the blind. It may be well-made, but doesn't it evade the point?
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