gavin6942 James (William Hurt) is a new speech teacher at a school for the deaf. He falls for Sarah (Marlee Matlin), a pupil who decided to stay on at the school rather than venture into the big bad world. She shuns him at first, refusing to read his lips and only using signs. Will her feelings change over time? Every so often a different sort of love story comes along. This is one of those, featuring a deaf woman and a man who wants to be her teacher (and more). It is interesting, and one has to wonder how deaf people react to it. Is this a compassionate and understanding film, or is it exploiting the deaf community? Certainly it seems that the intentions were good.Marlee Matlin is excellent, and it's nice to see she was honored for her role. I mean, I guess it's not a huge stretch to play a deaf woman, but it was probably an emotional role for her, knowing she was representing a great many people.

Jackson Booth-Millard When I read the title in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die I assumed it was going to be some sort of foreign film, I had no idea it was going to involve what I actually watched, but thank goodness I chose to watch it. Basically James Leeds (Oscar and Golden Globe nominated William Hurt) is the new speech teacher at a New England school for the deaf, and he has an energetic approach during his lessons, and has somewhat unusual skills to teach his new students to communicate, especially verbally despite lack of hearing. Soon enough he sees the woman who seems out of reach to anyone, school cleaner Sarah Norman (Oscar and Golden Globe winning Marlee Matlin) who is completely deaf, she does not like to communicate or spend time with anyone, and he is no exception as she shuns him, refusing to read his lips or signs. Eventually though she does pay some attention to James, communicates with sign language, and even accepts an invitation to dinner, and that is when the romantic feelings develop between the two of them, until they soon move in together. As they spend more time together however it is obvious that their communication is very limited because Sarah is stubborn not to try and learn better skills. James does try to get used to the fact that Sarah will not speak, and he succeeds in a stage performance with his deaf class students who dance and mime in time with some music, but he finds his home life very hard. They have a big argument and their relationship goes to breaking point when he demands she try to speak, so she leaves him to spend time with the only person she can, her mother Mrs. Norman (Oscar nominated Piper Laurie). In this time Sarah and her mother reconcile their own relationship, and thankfully in the end James resolves the love he has for her when they happen to meet each other again, and he agrees that they should maintain their love in whatever communication suits her. Also starring Philip Bosco as Dr. Curtis Franklin, Allison Gompf as Lydia, John F. Cleary as Johnny, Philip Holmes as Glen, Georgia Ann Cline as Cheryl, William D. Byrd as Danny, Frank Carter Jr. as Tony, John Limnidis as William and Bob Hiltermann as Orin. Hurt gives a great performance as the likable teacher with interesting methods to teach and a good heart despite his pressures, but Matlin obviously steals the show because she is completely natural, being deaf in real life she makes her character very sympathetic and emotional, her powerful performance beat Sigourney Weaver in Aliens to the Oscar, and she is a deserved winner. The story works both as a love story with a great poignancy and many emotional moments, and as a wonderful articulation of how any condition cannot stop people finding love, there are funny moments, happy moments, and many sad moments, all sorts of moments to get all emotions going, and all adds up to a must see romantic drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Very good!

itamarscomix Children of a Lesser God is worth watching, if for nothing else, for Marlee Matlin's star-making, Oscar-winning performance. She's really so good that she managed to draw me into the movie and enjoy it without noticing all the flaws and problems - those came rushing at me a couple of hours after finishing it.To be fair, even when Matlin isn't on screen, it's a beautiful movie, well-shot, well-made and very enjoyable, and very effective emotionally. But it uses every trick in the Hollywood book to manipulate the audience, while undermining its own flawed message at every turn.Front and center to all these problems is William Hurt's character. Despite Hurt's best efforts, James comes off as weak and inconsistent. When he's working as a speech teacher, he's shown to be charismatic and talented, playing up the full "Dead Poets' Society" prototype of the teacher with unorthodox methods who is disliked by the administration but loved by his students. And yet, whenever he's with Sarah (Matlin), he's weak-minded, babbling and insensitive.That serves to present him as condescending and irrational and make the viewer take Sarah's side on every argument, despite the fact that James, well, makes some pretty good points, and Sarah does her best to make things as complicated and melodramatic as possible at every turn, pick fights when there's no need for one, then back off at the last minute for no apparent reason. The whole thing feels like a rather cheap ploy to manipulate and guilt the viewer into taking he side he normally wouldn't; it also makes the romance between the two feel unconvincing and shallow from the very start. It's made worse by a sloppy ending, which makes us feel all warm inside while completely avoiding every issue raised throughout the movie.The only reason I'm ranting so much about the movie is that I enjoyed it. A movie that should have been good but has some very basic but major flaws is more annoying than a bad movie. Keeping all that in mind, though, I still recommend Children of a Lesser God as a beautiful, enjoyable drama, that tells an interesting story and is intriguing enough to actually provoke discussion.

Eumenides_0 Children of a Lesser God is a sensitive love story about James, a speech teacher who moves to a new deaf school and falls for introverted Sarah, a former student who decided to stay in the school because she can't relate with people.This movie is basically a story about overcoming the difficulties of communication between two people, but it's never that simple since Sarah has one of the strongest and most defensive personalities ever seen in a movie.As a deaf person, Sarah decided to rely on sex to gain men's affections and so can't commit to a meaningful relationship. She also fears James will treat her like everyone else always has. It's up to him to prove her wrong.William Hurt and Marlee Matlin are both perfect in this movie. The '80s were a great decade for Hurt, and he was already riding on the success of his previous Oscar victory. One could only expect a great performance from him. It's Matlin who's the revelation here, conveying her personality through body language and sign language. She proved that acting has nothing to do with words and deserve the Oscar for this performance.This movie is slow, sometimes dull, but for those with patience, it'll be quite rewarding on an emotional level.