Solid if unremarkable screen version of the Broadway play, starring Marlee Matlin before anyone knew who she was and William Hurt at the height of his mid-1980s popularity.
The film is sensitive and well-acted, but it never completely sheds its stage origins, and it has that faint whiff of school assembly lecture that many movies preaching tolerance for minority groups have. Matlin delivers a brave performance in her screen debut as a deaf student who falls in love with a professor; Hurt is said professor and delivers what he's asked to.
Also with Piper Laurie as Matlin's over-protective mother.
Grade: B+
The film is sensitive and well-acted, but it never completely sheds its stage origins, and it has that faint whiff of school assembly lecture that many movies preaching tolerance for minority groups have. Matlin delivers a brave performance in her screen debut as a deaf student who falls in love with a professor; Hurt is said professor and delivers what he's asked to.
Also with Piper Laurie as Matlin's over-protective mother.
Grade: B+