Divergence from usual story line

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 4

Divergence from usual story line

CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD Directed by Randa Haines Screenplay by Hesper Anderson and Mark Medoff If "Children of a Lesser God” (Savoy) deserves any of this year’s Academy Awards, they are for the acting of both Marlee Matlin, as a deaf young woman, and William Hurt, as her mentor and lover. The film has also been nominated for Oscars for best picture, best supporting actress (Piper Laurie), and best screenplay but how well it does in these categories will depend on the quality of other contenders.

Based on Mark Medoffs stage play, it is about a brilliant young teacher (Hurt) who accepts a post at a special school for the deaf in a remote part of New England (actually filmed just over the border from • Maine, in Canadian New Brunswick). Hurt meets and falls in love with the lovely but temperamental Matlin, a former pupil of the school who is employed to do menial cleaning jobs. Matlin, however,

resents Hurt’s attentions, and although deeply in love with him, breaks off their relationship. Needless to say, there is a happy ending. The subject of teaching the handicapped has been dealt with often before, most memorably in the somewhat hysterical “The Miracle Worker,” about the life of Helen Keller. “Children of a Lesser God” makes a brave divergence from the usual story line, however, by introducing a romance — and a sexually charged one at that — between the two protagonists.

Added to this is some beautiful photography of the Canadian coastline by the Australian cinematographer, John Seale, who will be remembered for his work in “Witness.” By contrast, many of the interior shots seem unnecessarily dark. Visually most potent, both dramatically and sensually, are the swimming pool scenes, where the underwater world can easily be equated to Matlin’s silent surrounds; and to-which Hurt retreats, at one stage, in an effort to comprehend his lover’s enclosed environment. The chasm in communication between the worlds of silence and sound is also effectively shown when Hurt realises that he cannot share with Matlin his enjoyment of Bach’s double concerto for violins. In fact, he finds he can no longer derive any pleasure from the music while she cannot hear it.

Equally poignant is Matlin’s slow dance of gestures in an Italian restaurant to music which she claims she can sense through the tip of her nose.

Hurt’s unconventional teaching methods with his younger pupils also enliven this film, which otherwise might well have been a fairly predictable love story under trying circumstances. Particularly satisfying are the children’s mime and dance to a pop tune at a school concert.

It seems slightly churlish to criticise a film with the noble aspirations of giving us an insight into the world of the deaf, and the attempts to teach them to communicate — particularly if it has been nominated for five Academy Awards. There are a few flaws, however, among even the finest intentions.

First, there is no attempt at explaining the title of the film. Then, it seems improbable that the highly intelligent Matlin, who was one of the school’s brightest pupils, is now working there cleaning floors and toilets. I also found it equally difficult to believe that Hurt should fall in love, almost instantaneously, with a girl he sees throwing pots round a kitchen. She is arrogant and rude, and without conversation they have nothing in common. Yet, Hurt says with a straight face, “You are the most beautiful, mysterious, angry person I have ever met.”

For an otherwise intelligent film, I found the obligatory happy ending also a little unreal. In fact, I gather that the play leaves the ending open, the two lovers still having, a few obstacles to overcome.

Matlin looks a little like a finer, lovelier verson of Debra Winger, and her reconciliation with Hurt at the end-of-year school dance — she in a beautiful white dress — seems like a romantic reversal of roles from the ending of “An Officer and a Gentleman," in which Richard Gere — in white uniform — embraces Winger in his arms. Such touches of banality should be unnecessary in this otherwise sensitive film.

A particularly fine performance is also given by Pipe Laurie as Matlin’s mother, who turns out to be not the unfeeling monster she at first seems. After many highly forgettable performances in her younger days, Laurie now usually manages to do well enough to get her nominated for Academy Awards. Her other two best supporting actress nominations were for her role as Paul Newman’s lame girlfriend in “The Hustler,” and as Sissy Spacek’s obsessively religious mother in “Carrie.”

The acting honours, however, should go to Matlin, and Hurt, who won last year’s best Oscar for his role in “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” and which. will probably disqualify him from winning it for a second year running. Matlin manages to project both strength and vulnerability, while soundlessly expressing herself with facial gesture and body and sign laiiguage.

Hurt has pulled off the difficult technical trick of speaking not only for himself but also his deaf costar, as well as mastering sign language. It would be an appropriate happy ending to “Children of a Lesser God” if both were awarded Oscars — for they are also lovers in real life.

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