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William Hurt, Marlee Matlin, Piper Laurie

Mark Medoff's tough play about deafness is sweetened and softened in this 1986 film adaptation directed by Randa Haines (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway). William Hurt plays a teacher newly hired at...( read more  read more... ) a school for deaf children, and Marlee Matlin is the deaf and withdrawn janitor who captures his attention. Romantic and heartfelt, the film makes its audience care very much about its two leading characters, and wince when Hurt's well-meaning instructor allows Matlin's handicap to become a problem. Haines develops some interesting visual ideas to underscore the isolation of Matlin's world, particularly a lovely refrain that finds Matlin swimming alone at night. The drama is cut somewhat by the bouncy energy and good humor of Hurt's students. Piper Laurie is very good in a supporting role as Matlin's mother. --Tom Keogh

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24 critics

R, 118 min.

Directed by: Randa Haines

Release Date: October 3, 1986

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DVD Release Date: November 15, 2005

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Children of a Lesser God Piper Laurie in Children of a Lesser God Piper Laurie & Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God this candace Marlee Matlin honored at Golden Globes Marlee Matlin and William Hurt in Children of a Lesser God William Hurt in Children of a Lesser God William Hurt in Children of a Lesser God Marlee Matlin Children of a Lesser God
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Flixster Reviews (348)

  • FangsFirst
    November 9, 2007
    FangsFirst
    I bought this movie knowing essentialy nothing of it except that it was well thought of, and eventually that it involved deafness. When I hear something like that, my stomach immediately ties in knots--are people saying it's good because it is, or because they don't want to be pe...( read more)rceived as cruelly prejudiced? Putting the DVD in, I expected to sit back to either a glorified afternoon special of an extremely artsy, lush, slow-paced movie that constantly turned its nose up at everything.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the first scene in the school that James Leeds (William Hurt) has taken a job at. We first see him arriving and talking to the principal (or whatever position of authority it is that Dr. Curtis Franklin (Philip Bosco) holds), but things begin to move once we hit the classroom. Leeds begins by asking who reads lips, saying his signing is rusty. The students stare at him blankly and he says "All right, class dismissed," and neglects to sign this time. They fall for it and he catches them heading for the door. This gives us an overall flavour for the movie's approach--one I was pleased with. It's not trying painfully hard to make the deaf world perfectly clear to the hearing world, nor is it assuming the viewer knows everything about it either. Leeds teaches with energy, trying to use relatable concepts to encourage the nervous, self-conscious students to speak, often making a bit of a fool of himself in the process, but never in that overly cringe-inducing false way.

    But, we only see snippets of his classroom, because the real focus of the movie is on his relationship with Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin), a deaf woman (as in completely deaf) who works as a janitor at the school and attracts his attention with her firey anger and stubborn refusal to connect to anyone. He takes it upon himself to teach her to speak, something he understands backfired in her early years when she first started at the school as a student. The rest of the film is all about their interactions, about the ways they connect and the ways they fail to connect, the things they understand of each other and don't understand of each other, the different worlds and viewpoints they both come from.

    Matlin won an Oscar for her role, which I do think was well-deserved. The anger and frustration of Sarah at the way everyone around her sees her (as "broken" and in need of "fixing") is absolutely believable; the way she turns from James constantly, ready to break away at a moment's notice from his presence because she doesn't feel she needs it, because she feels he is like the rest and because she sees him trying to change her, well-intentioned though he is. We can see the hurt she won't even acknowledge herself though, hiding in these angry moments and occasionally coming out in moments of extreme vulnerability, when she sees how happy his singing students make him.

    Hurt impressed me more, but only because I knew him as bland, vanilla and less than impressive next to the unrelated-but-similarly-named John Hurt. He always seemed like a really banal choice, sort of like Jeff Bridges--believeable as their characters, even sympathetic, but generally ho-hum and uninteresting. Both have changed my mind (and certainly A History of Violence was a surprise for me as Hurt goes), but this really changed my mind about Hurt. The way he acted in two scenes, making valiant but both failing attempts at understanding Sarah's world was perfect in its complex mix of good intention, awkward confusion and legitimate effort, at least in one of them. At one point, he is stopping to listen to some Bach and no longer finds the same feeling in it with Sarah's inability to hear and appreciate it. She asks him to show her the music, and the sort of uncomfortable effort that follows is just right. You can see him as James, trying to show the emotion the music instills in him, see the self-consciousness of it as he knows how odd he looks, and see that he keeps trying it even as he knows how foolish he looks. The second is a party a friend of Sarah's invites her to, populated near-exclusively by other deaf people. The background, alienated position James takes, the sighing and shrugging is just right for that kind of feeling of exclusion.

    There are two things this film is criticized for, and the first I think is lunacy. The score I was actually quite keen on from the outset, mostly synthetic strings, ebbing and flowing as if water, generally holding in an overall area of tone and pitch, wafting back and forth between. I didn't feel any dating to it, and despite my love for the decade, I am well aware of that feeling (some of the other music, of course, was definitely dated, but that's appropriate in the context of a party in a school set at that time). The other criticism is levelled at the decision to have Leeds repeat aloud (almost) everything that Sarah signs to him. Some feel (like my old conceptual nemesis Ebert) that it would have been better subtitled. Honestly, I did expect that, but felt it would push the film into the snobbery I referened as the alternative to overblown afternoon special. It feels natural (more impressiveness from Hurt for me) and real, and is mentioned in passing as having legitimate reason. I don't think subtitles would have worked correctly. I liked how it turned out and enjoyed it quite thoroughly. I prefer stage dramas that are really turned into movies, and you have to remove dialogue from scenes and place it somewhere else in your head to see how it would have worked on stage. Simply putting it into real places instead of sets (or into more realistic sets, at least) is often obvious if the blocking ends up similar and doesn't feel as right as it does on a stage. I also like my romances to be lacking in beat-you-over-the-head conflicts, which certainly this could have been (again, see "overblown afternoon special") but it comes out intelligent and perceptive, showing us Sarah's world at least through James' eyes, even if we can't truly experience it through hers.
  • Jules1st
    July 9, 2007
    Jules1st
    The movie has a great first half but at the beginning of the second it starts slowing down. Yet the performances by the two leads wree great through the whole movie.
  • limoradalloway
    May 16, 2007
    limoradalloway
    Sad and sweet.
  • shoushudave
    September 9, 2009
    shoushudave
    I am a ASL student and i haven't gotten around to seeing this movie until last night and i am now taking ASL-3 so it was cool to be able to understand a good deal of the signing done in the movie. The performances are great a very good movie that i would recommend to any one
  • SageSlowdive
    August 16, 2009
    SageSlowdive
    Near perfect movie featuring some amazing acting.
  • melbrakel
    July 22, 2009
    melbrakel
    "Do you think there's someplace where we can meet that's not in silence and not in sound?"

    Beautiful film with brilliant performances from both Marlee Matlin (who won an Academy Award for her role) and William Hurt. The story of a deaf girl and a special education teacher...( read more) who falls in love with her. Definitely worth a watch.

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  • scrambledegg7
    July 18, 2009
    scrambledegg7
    Not only was this a good romance, it was actually a very good teacher movie. William Hurt is very interesting as the male lead and Marlee Matlin is absolutely superb as his deaf girlfriend. It felt like it lost a little steam near the end, however, it goes pretty solidly until th...( read more)en. Well worth the watch!
  • tntroy61
    July 10, 2009
    tntroy61
    An awesome love story, with great performances by Marlee Matlin ( she won the oscar for this ) and especially William Hurt.
  • BettyWhaCknUt
    March 9, 2009
    BettyWhaCknUt
    " Yelling at the back of a deaf person, very good James."
  • akakourtney
    February 26, 2009
    akakourtney
    a great story and great actress just a great movie all around!!

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Children of a Lesser God Trivia

  • Who was the oscar winning actress who starred as Sarah in Children of a Lesser God?  Answer »
  • What is unusual about the main character, Sarah, in 1986's "Children of a Lesser God"?  Answer »
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  • Marlee Matlin won her Oscar for "Best Actress" thanks to her performance in which movie?  Answer »
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