Cinema Sunday: Children of a Lesser God

So today's Cinema Sunday continues with February's theme of social relevance with a look at a movie from 1986 that explores the lives of the hearing impaired.  

Adapted from a 1979 stage play, the film Children of a Lesser God is set at a New England school for the deaf and hard of hearing and follows the relationship between a new teacher (who can hear) and a custodian (who is deaf).   

James Leeds (William Hurt) arrives at the school, a new teacher just brimming with energy and ideas on teaching deaf kids how to speak.  Some of the kids in his class are a bit resistant to learning how to speak. They know that their voices will not sound like those who can hear and they fear being seen as stupid, as lesser than hearing people. 

And there is some hubris involved as some of the deaf students wonder why they should adapt to the hearing world when those who can hear should adapt to communicate with them and learn sign language.

But as James points out, what if you need to communicate with someone while you're holding stuff. Or need help and you're too far away for sign language to be seen.  

It takes time and a lot of patience but James gets his students to speak (even if for one, they only seem to learn profanity). He also gets them to learn dance choreography to a song they cannot hear.

James' successes with his students do not necessarily translate to the school custodian.  

Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin) was once a student of the school, one of it's best and brightest. There are any number of things that Sarah's intelligence and education would let her do but she's chosen to stay at the school, even if it means working as a janitor.  

James is immediately attracted to Sarah and flits about the school bugging her why she's trying clean it. Alternating between charming and annoying, James finally gets Sarah to agree to have dinner with him. 

Sarah does not want to vocalize and James agrees to not force the issue. But he still brings it up because getting deaf people to speak is kind of his job.   

Sarah has put up a lot of walls around herself. Her mother was cold and distant. As a student, Sarah was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of multiple boys who took advantage of her. And there's the ever present wall of silence, cutting her off from the hearing world.  Sarah is distrustful of relationships. 

But James keeps up the charm offensive as they eventually become a couple and she even moves in with him.  But their relationship is a contentious one with tensions between them over their differing ideologies on speech and deafness.  

Eventually these tensions reach a breaking point and Sarah leaves James and the school.  Sarah reconciles with her estranged mother and lives with her while working as a manicurist. Interesting choice for a person nominally committed to avoid interactions with the hearing world, working a job that involves using her hands which limits her ability to sign. 

Over time Sarah and James reconcile at the school prom, committing to find a way to stay connected between the world of silence and the world of sound. 

Marlee Matlin is captivating as Sarah, owning the screen in all her scenes, conveying a wide range of emotions with such power and passion, all without uttering a single word.  

William Hurt as James has some heavy lifting to do, delivering his own lines and translating Sarah's fast paced sign language. Her signing is done at such a furious pace, James has to vocalize what she's saying to help him keep up.  

I had some problems with the particulars of James and Sarah's courtship. As much as we may be told that James and Sarah are two consenting adult co-workers, James is a teacher and Sarah is younger than James, a janitor and not that long ago was a student so the yeah, the power dynamic seems a bit lop sided.  

I've also let some troubling information about William Hurt's relationships with women off the set color my perception of his character.  James Leeds may have been a charming goofball but  William Hurt was apparently a hard ass jerk with women. 

All that aside,Children of a Lesser God is a quietly compelling film that delivers a moving portrait of what happens when the lives of those who cannot hear intersect with those who can.

So next week keeping up with the theme of social relevance and since it is Black History Month, next week's movie is about black history and a slave uprising in the 1840's that leads to an historic case for the Supreme Court.

On the subject of movies, if all goes according to plan, Andrea and I will be seeing Ant Man & the Wasp: Quantumania today. The Cinema Sunday write up on that will post on March 5th.