Before she was the deaf line judge on an episode of "Seinfeld", and many more years before she was in the super shitty "What the Bleep Do We Know?" (yes, I watched it out of morbid curiosity, and no, I didn't finish it, and yes, I walked away thinking less of...) Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for her role as a (no big surprise here) deaf... janitor at a school for the deaf she used to attend. Her big deal is that she doesn't read lips or speak, even though that is one of the school's main goals.
Enter William Hurt, fresh off winning his own Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman (another movie I'm planning on seeing this year), a teacher with "fresh" ideas and "interesting" teaching methods (sounds like a plot device that's never happened before!) who falls for the candid, angry young Matlin with just a little bit of make-her-talk project-on-the-side action, as well. Of course, I'm supposed to feel super emotional when Hurt finds out that one of the reasons she doesn't talk is because she found out that the way she could be just like all the "hearing girls" was to sleep with all the "hearing boys". And that didn't require her talking at all, I guess. But either I've got the emotional range of a teaspoon (à la Ron Weasley) or this flashpoint wasn't all that surprising or life-altering. P.S. It was the latter. (I mean, come on, I was teary within like, 20 minutes of the first episode of The Killing.)
I'll tell you what the best part of this movie was: Hurt's interactions with his students. Equal parts "inspiration", humor, candor, and real-ness. It's also one of the only parts of the movie where Hurt's being made to repeat EVERYTHING that anybody signs works in the movie's favor. (Seriously, this got annoying. When Matlin gesticulates wildly and slaps her head with her hand, I don't need to be told that she was saying "Duh". See what I did there? I copied the movie AND made a funny!) In any case, I loved every part with Hurt working his magic with the kids way more than the real plot love triangle of Hurt, Matlin, and Matlin's deafness.
I don't want to make it sound as though Matlin doesn't do a great job, because she really does. I actually am able to process emotions when she's onscreen. But the movie was supposed to have pulled so much more out of me than it was able to. Of course, I'll always believe that they gave the Oscar to Matlin's Deafness, but meh. Worse things have happened.
Score: 6.5/10
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