A film that should get a lot of credit for at least broaching the subject of deafness, casting deaf actors (a first), and introducing us to 21-year-old Marlee Matlin, who's wonderful here. It has serious flaws in both the story and how it's told, however, which makes it fall short especially in 2022, after having seen a more three dimensional representation in the film Coda, which also stars Matlin. We get glimpses of the frustration of being deaf, but Children of a Lesser God is more focused on the relationship between a teacher (William Hurt) and a janitor (Matlin) than it is about going into depth on her struggles.
Oh, we see the deaf kids learn how to dance along to the song "Boomerang," one learn some profanity, and find out that Matlin's character is better than all the hearing girls in bed, but these are all pretty shallow things geared towards commercial appeal, and told mostly from the teacher's perspective. He's like a hearing savior, and it was a serious mistake to have Hurt vocalize all of the dialogue from the deaf characters rather than subtitle them. When Hurt was screaming at Matlin to speak HIS language and SPEAK to him, I felt like punching him in the face, a feeling possibly amplified by knowing some of the things he did to her in their personal life.
The deaf characters are humanized, however, and Matlin's character does get in a few moments to explain some of her emotions. Ordinarily I'd probably fall for the sweetness in the love story, but here I found myself thinking it was too commercial, with the gratuitous (though brief) nudity included. If it were made today, I'd probably knock my rating down a bit, but I respect the progress it represented in 1986, and loved Marlee Matlin.
Oh, we see the deaf kids learn how to dance along to the song "Boomerang," one learn some profanity, and find out that Matlin's character is better than all the hearing girls in bed, but these are all pretty shallow things geared towards commercial appeal, and told mostly from the teacher's perspective. He's like a hearing savior, and it was a serious mistake to have Hurt vocalize all of the dialogue from the deaf characters rather than subtitle them. When Hurt was screaming at Matlin to speak HIS language and SPEAK to him, I felt like punching him in the face, a feeling possibly amplified by knowing some of the things he did to her in their personal life.
The deaf characters are humanized, however, and Matlin's character does get in a few moments to explain some of her emotions. Ordinarily I'd probably fall for the sweetness in the love story, but here I found myself thinking it was too commercial, with the gratuitous (though brief) nudity included. If it were made today, I'd probably knock my rating down a bit, but I respect the progress it represented in 1986, and loved Marlee Matlin.