Sound and Fury (2000) User Reviews

Another worthwhile documentary

[darling137 · 8/10 · 30 September 2006]

I really enjoy documentaries, especially ones that don't have an axe to grind. Though I have no particular interest in the "deaf culture" (my exposure has been limited to a bunch of deaf folks who are in a dart league at the local sports pub), I was drawn into this documentary.

Like another reviewer noted, I found myself getting a little emotional at the end. In fact, throughout the movie I was emotionally involved with a subject matter I would never thought I would.

I was struck by the elitist nature of a certain element of the deaf community. Many of the deaf people in the film were extremely antagonistic toward anything that would remove deafness or a deaf person from their community. While this is understandable, I found it extremely selfish. Not only were many in complete denial that deafness inhibited their quality of life whatsoever (are we still allowed to use the word handicapped???), some considered it superior to the "hearing world." I noted with irony that many of the deaf family members at the picnic who were so repulsed by the idea of a cocklear implant were wearing glasses; obviously they considered being born with or having deteriorating eyesight something in need of fixing. Their attitude reminded me of other defensive groups such as un(der)educated parents (hey, I did OK, why does my son need to go to college) or racial minorities (oh, you just want to make her "white").

Even without the controversial subject of the cocklear implant this is a great study in generations as it is the old story of parents either wanting their kids (adult kids) wanting them to either be like them or to have it better than they had it.

I found several moments quite telling in this documentary

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 8 January 2007]

Let me state at the outset that I come to this film with a different viewpoint than most people. I can understand, to a degree, what it is to be an "other", as I am disabled (I have Cerebral Palsy and I use crutches), though the advocates of the concept of a "deaf culture" would probably say that the two situations aren't at all analogous, as their world view largely rests on the presumption that deafness isn't a "disability", but rather provides a sense of community to them. I beg to differ with that position, as they are limited by the inability to hear, whether they like that truth or not. While there is a modicum of accuracy in the proposition that it is the hearing who create some of those limitations, it must also be understood that the world will be designed to the specifications of the majority and the majority can hear. The whole conceit of there being a "deaf culture" in the first place is simply a shield against acknowledging that their deafness is a hindrance to them in a world managed, by and large, for those who can hear. What's happened is that an artificial and insular bubble has been created so that those who created it can pretend that they aren't disadvantaged or limited at all. This documentary is very instructive on this premise, as I will show in my comments below. As I have to use the documentary to illustrate my point, there will be spoilers:

Throughout this documentary, the advocates of the importance of maintaining "deaf culture" maintain a hostility towards anyone seeking to do or say anything which they perceive as being in any way an indication that deafness is not a desirable characteristic. The father whose daughter is at the center of one of the two debates openly says that he was happy when he found out his daughter was deaf, because she was just like him. He is opposed to the CI procedure almost every moment from the beginning and he seems more resigned than accepting when his wife says she thinks their daughter should have the operation. When the final decision not to have his daughter undergo the CI procedure is made, he takes the step of moving to a largely deaf community which is truly a kind of enclave, an escape from a hearing world he'd rather shun than deal with.

I find it most fascinating that when Heather says she wants the procedure, whenever she's asked why, she has any number of reasons. As things progress and her parents clearly and vehemently argue against their daughter getting the implant, you can see the reaction of her parents is not lost on their daughter. There's a conversation between the mother (who was at first interested in the procedure, but starts turning against the idea when she learns that her daughter will be encouraged to drop using sign in favor of using speech-the mother then worries that she'll drop out of the "deaf culture" in doing so) and her daughter where the daughter says, after her mother asks her for her feelings on having an implant, that she doesn't want one. When asked for reasons,the daughter gives none, just restates that she doesn't want one. Having gotten the answer she wanted, the mother doesn't press, instead suggesting that it was her decision, after all, at which point the daughter looks at her and makes it clear that she understood that her parents had made the decision (which, of course, they did) and the mother infers that it was a mutual decision.

All through this, those deaf people who are unhappy with any suggestion that the CI procedure could be a positive thing react as though it was a personal affront, as if the person making the suggestion didn't think that they were "good enough". One woman, a grandmother to the baby whose parents opted to have a CI done, openly laments being made fun of by a once deaf and now hearing grandchild. Can anyone tell me that a person can make that kind of a statement and still claim with a straight face (and be believable) that they only have the child's best interests at heart? Let me also state, for the record, that I don't know if I would opt for the CI procedure for myself, though for different reasons-it's a major invasive procedure and I'd have to weigh the risks independently.

I probably wouldn't be making a comment on this had it not been glaringly obvious that most of the adults behaved more like children than the children did. The parents of the two children who were the focus of the debate are, after all, the parents and have the right (but also the obligation) to make the decisions respectively, but I would have been far more sympathetic to the parents of Heather when they were complaining that everyone was trying to gang up on them for their decision not to go with an implant for their daughter (the scene with the mother bursting into tears near the end) had they and the other proponents of "deaf culture" not been ganging up on the parents who opted to have the CI procedure for their son. They expected to be accorded a respect for their decision which did not see fit to extend and they were far more vehement in their comments to the other parents in opposition than the other couple was to them. Any courtesy you demand for yourself you should immediately give to others without any hesitation or qualification.

Thought-provoking and generally excellent documentary and well worth seeing. Recommended.

Solid, emotionally complex documentary

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 28 April 2011]

Moving, emotionally and morally complex documentary about a family with both hearing and deaf members, including two sets of parents of deaf children. One set of parents are hearing, the other deaf themselves. The fathers are brothers.

The hearing parents want a cochlear implant for their deaf baby, angering and alienating the deaf relatives who see the operation as a threat to deaf culture. The even more complex story is that of the 5 year old deaf daughter of the deaf parents. The little girl wants the implant, and that creates an awful emotional dilemma for the parents who have to question whether denying their daughter the operation is the right thing to do.

There are a few minor annoyances. The families try to act like the camera isn't there, but it clearly is awkwardly affecting their behavior. Also, I wish the film had subtitled the sign language, rather than having less-than-great actors give their own inflection and emotional interpretation to what'™s being said, which may or may not be accurate.

But these are minor problems for a film that tackles a complex issue with intelligence and even-handedness.

Heartbreaking

[carina_s · 18 November 2002]

This documentary was excellently done, and completely heartbreaking.

Mostly this was hard for me because my mother, deaf from birth, had a cochlear implant over four years ago, with wildly successful results. She did not have the implant because people were pressuring her to do so, nor did she do it because she did not like herself the way she was, she did it in order to experience sound.

She was warned that it was very unlikely for her to develop speech recognition, and that the most she could hope for were recognition of environmental sounds. She asked me what I thought about it, and I said, "Go for it! It's worth a shot!" To me, and most of my family, the chance to hear music seemed worth it alone. So what she never becomes a "hearing person"- truly that's not the goal anyway. The point is that hearing sound is a tremendous experience most of the hearing world takes for granted, and if you have the opportunity to hear even some of the world of sound, why not take it?

My mother has never really been part of the deaf culture as defined by this film, she learned to lipread and speak excellently and was able to function very successfully without the ability to hear, as many deaf individuals do.

After she got the implant, my mother worked incredibly hard to develop speech recognition, astounding her audiologists. She truly proves that if you are highly motivated you can do it. She was also amazed at the things that made sound, plastic bags crinkling, dry autumn leaves under your feet, and the buzz of street lamps.

My mom would be the first to tell you that it's worth the risk, recovery and work required. Not because you become part of "the hearing world" but because you gain a sense. You can hear a child cry, a dog bark, a bird sing.

Personally, I feel really disgusted with parents of children who are eligible for the surgery and don't go for it. It's not a question of deaf culture or not- it's a question of knowingly depriving a child of the chance to develop their sense of hearing.

I object strongly to the deaf community's feeling that hearing people can't accept them the way they are. That may be some people's thinking, but it's not everyone's. I certainly didn't think that when my mother decided against the implant years ago, then for it four years ago. It was up to her at that point. With children, the chance for developing speech and speech recognition is so great, and so much slimmer if they were to wait- that deciding against it for a child is really taking away an opportunity that is once in a life time.

Is development of speech and the sense of hearing necessary for a child? Hearing people would say yes, many deaf people would say no. Fair enough. I agree that it's not necessary, but rather a luxury? Why not allow a person the opportunity to do it if the technology exists? Sign language and deaf culture will never be extinct, because the cochlear implant is not for every kind of hearing loss. It is also not a cure-all- an implant patient only hears when his or her implant is turned on. They are still deaf.

And in all honesty- does it really matter? If you have the chance to make your child's life easier and fuller by giving him or her the ability to hear sounds that perhaps you as a deaf parent never heard, it is selfish to stop them just because you yourself may never have the opportunity. A hearing child will still be a part of your family, hearing or not.

This film was a more than fair look at both sides of the issue, and produced in me a myriad of emotions and thoughts.

To see and also hear . . . that is the question

[hofnarr · 10/10 · 28 March 2000]

If your child were born with a disability which medical technology could cure, would you use it? Stupid question, you might say. But it might depend on your definition of "disability" and your environment.

SOUND AND FURY deals with the questions raised by the development of cochlear implants which can restore hearing for those with congenital deafness. Very few (if any) people in the hearing world would think this to be a bad thing, but within the deaf community some see this as encroaching technology which will eventually obliterate deaf culture and sign language.

This is one of the best documentaries I've seen in some time - partly because it really made me think (reminding me of the statement 'If you make people think they're thinking - they'll love you. If you *really* make them think, they'll hate you.')

I didn't feel hate - but I experienced some very strong emotions. Not nearly as much as those on screen, though. I was exposed to a situation in which I didn't think there could be more than one side - and was brought to the realization that there was. A very provocative film.

There was a forum after the screening of the film I attended with Josh Aronson (the director), a local pediatric surgeon who's done a number of implants, the mother of a young girl who'd had an implant operation by this surgeon, and a person from the Theatre for the Deaf in the area. I was best able to appreciate the feeling of some of those in the deaf community when the theatre director made an analogy to the Borg in STAR TREK (I paraphrase): A lot of people in the deaf community see cochlear implants like the Borg - instead of going through the eye, the implants go through the skull by the ear. It seems like hearing society is saying to the deaf society "You will be assimilated - resistance is futile."

How important is deaf culture? Whose responsibility is it to choose whether a child should get an implant? To delay and "let the child make the choice later" can very much be like choosing no, as the window for brain plasticity for language narrows with every passing year. Are parents who don't get an implant for their child, thereby keeping them in the deaf community "abusive"?

An interesting film raising intriguing questions.

The positive in negativity

[joelpt · 10/10 · 3 January 2002]

Every so often, a movie comes along which disturbs me -- not because it is graphical or offensive in nature, but because it is genuinely upsetting to watch. This is one such movie.

And these are the movies I value highest, because they cause you to *think* -- whereas most movies intend to produce the exactly opposite effect. Although I would not describe this movie as leaving one with a warm fuzzy feeling afterward, I will say that I am better for having watched it. It was a powerful reminder of the real danger that ignorance and pride pose to each of us in this world -- a danger that, both ironically and fittingly, we may never come to realize because of circumstances outside of our control.

Told by an idiot signifying nothing

[plaster · 9/10 · 6 February 2001]

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

MacBeth, v. iii.

Sound and fury is as robust a movie as I can recall having ever seen. It speaks heartily of life and of the dilemmas and difficult decisions we all face. It confronts modernity and the extinction of culture. This film speaks of decisions made that are incomprehensible to other members of the same family. It speaks of steps that are superficially modest but whose consequences are mammoth. These are the decisions that we make daily and may eventually destroy human life on this rock. Sound and fury asks each of us in a soft voice if we are part of the problem or the solution. It is a moving picture.

fascinating

[YanivEidelstein · 10/10 · 11 April 2002]

i agree with what everyone else has said in this forum, and felt i should add my recommendation.

this film is about identity and culture, pride and shame, belonging and being an outsider. i found it said so much to me, i had a hard time keeping my mind on it, as my brain kept trailing off with new thoughts about life.

see it, not because you have or haven't known deaf people; see it because you are human.

How scientific progress might not always be progressive...

[TheDocHierarchy · 7/10 · 12 February 2012]

If you had a deaf child, but treatment existed to return their hearing, would you go ahead with the surgery?

Seems simple, right. Not.

Long Island, circa 2000.

Peter Artinian and his wife Nita are deaf, as are their three children. Proud members of a wider deaf community, the couple view the deficiency as a blessing - one they are happy to share with their offspring. However, when their five-year old daughter Heather - a clearly bright young girl - relates her desire to have a cochlear implant, they are forced to reluctantly investigate the then-revolutionary treatment.

Chris Artinian, Peter's brother, is not deaf, nor is his wife. However with deafness in both their families, it comes as only a minor shock when one of their new-born twins is diagnosed as deaf. Four years younger than cousin Heather, cochlear surgery for the baby would be slightly safer and offer a greater prospect of success (defined as keeping up academically with mainstream 'hearers').

The heart and beauty of 'Sound and Fury' is the apparent simplicity of the initial dilemma, and the manner in which it is slowly and systematically undermined by Aronson. We are taken inside a proud, but insular, deaf community that has largely usurped the difficulties we may wantonly have considered insurmountable; a memorable exchange at a deaf school barbecue ends with Artinian family friends describing their own professions and responsibilities, all achieved with their supposed 'disability' (not 'despite' it).

Peter Artinian is the real bulldog to this end however. With his heart worn passionately on his sleeve, the translation of his sign language is almost unnecessary - we know how much he cares for his daughter; we get how concerned he is that the surgery may prove unsuccessful and leave Heather stranded between communities; we understand how much he wants his family to not see their deafness as a disability. Yet the nagging suspicion that he would be denying her certain opportunities persists.

For Chris and his wife Mari, as a family of hearers, the decision appears simpler - despite the opposition of his brother and his wife's deaf parents. Supported by his own parents, their journey is less whether they desire the implant than whether the surgery is worth the risk - does it offer everything they have been told?

The results are never clear; as one might naturally expect, Chris and Mari focus on those who have been successes, Peter manages to find those who have struggled. Ironically, as each brother affirms his decision, we only grow more conflicted.

Heart-wrenching.

Concluding Thought: I hope sign language never dies out. It is so very raw and human.

Enlightening!

[rnfriend · 10/10 · 2 February 2006]

I had never realized there was a deaf culture as defined by this movie! I had a cousin who was deaf from birth, visited her at her "special" school, learned to sign a little myself, loved her dearly and still mourn her death. I learned from watching this movie there are people who actually HATE others because they are NOT DEAF, just as some people HATE people who are NOT GAY or NOT BLACK or NOT American BORN or NOT BAPTIST! Why must people hate others just because they are different! This movie shows how it can even affect the unfortunate children of such biased people. Can you imagine waiting until a child is 15 and allowing the child to decide if he/she wants to be educated or illiterate? That seems as fair and sensible as making a child remain deaf or hearing impaired until that age when they can decide for themselves if they want to hear! A person that can not embrace their own differences wouldn't be able to embrace another person's differences though...or to admit their narrow-mindedness! This film is certainly enlightening for anyone willing to learn.

An Escher Drawing as Film

[aedesjanus · 7/10 · 20 June 2015]

Two brothers, one deaf (Peter Artinian) and one hearing (Chris Artinian), have deaf children and struggle with the question of getting cochlear implants for them. Whereas Chris is entirely for the procedure, Peter and his wife, Nita (also deaf), have great difficulties accepting what they feel would separate their daughter from them. The film's setting is a solidly middle class community on Long Island.

The profound contradictions between Peter's affirmation of his deaf identity, and his having proved that independent of it, he is a "success", and his desire to impose his sense of community on his young daughter is strangely compelling. Peter's intensity regarding his daughter comes across as narcissistic and disingenuous. Nita's manipulation of the child in one of the final scenes goes a long way to alienate the audience.

But Aronson succeeds in making both sides of the family appear ambivalent. The presence of all at the annual deaf convention leads to heated debates about the destruction of community that the technology will bring. These debates also throw into relief the projection that the hearing have about deafness as handicap. Emotionally, the deaf community is portrayed as having constituted itself as a self-protective, parallel society. There is strength in their otherness, as they are distinct and do not want to overcome this.

By being biologically modified they become part of the greater capitalist narrative of success or failure, independent of what makes them different. This is a loss, and Peter is the most sensitive to this, despite how impossible it is for him to articulate it in the film. The irony is that the esoteric part of his experience has also cut him off from the ability to evolve to a point in his thinking that would transcend his limitations. The film is much less about the limitations of deafness per se, but rather on the long terms emotional impacts of alterity, self-imposed or otherwise. Being other took all of Peter's strength and is fulcrum of the choices he has made. It also provides for him the chance to depend on others who have made the same unwilling sacrifices.

With his alterity removed, he is no longer a hero. His sacrifices perhaps fleeting and unnecessary. It is here that the frailty and ambivalence of self-importance is portrayed. With no counter-factual otherness to bind him to others, the perceived poetry that was his suffering, will be silenced. For Peter, this is a form of being born again deaf in another dimension. But all of this does not create meaning for a little girl who has no intrinsic standing in this pathos. If she can belong, she no does need to be the measure of another (in)justice. No one makes that clearer to Peter than his hearing mother, father, and brother.

Aronson's intense scrutiny of the ambivalence of otherness is fascinating because of just how much detail it leaves in place. We can feel the right answer, but are somehow left with an unresolved and unsettling feeling of being perpetrators. By believing in the right of the normal to assert itself, we assert it in ways that implicitly negatively impact others. Aronson's film does not help us resolve this tension, and that is at the core of the films poignancy.

The deaf can do anything, except hear.

[screamy_mimi · 8/10 · 26 April 2007]

I am a hearing person learning American Sign Language and deaf culture. After watching this film I was so angry with the hearing parents who gave their young son a cochlear implant because of the assumptions they associated with being deaf. The hearing parents kept using the word "opportunities". The mother repeatedly said her son wouldn't have the same opportunities as his brother or any other hearing child. What opportunities could be lost by being deaf? A deaf person can grow up to do anything they want. For example, there is an International Deaf Pilot Association. The deaf can do anything, except hear.

When some hearing people say that deaf parents who do not give their children cochlear implants are being ignorant and selfish it makes me feel sorry for them that they do not understand what it means to be deaf. Being deaf is not a problem that needs to be fixed; it is a different way of experiencing the world that to most hearing people may seem incomplete but is not.

In the film, the mother that gave her son the cochlear implant asked if your child was blind and there was an operation to make them see, would you do it? She then said there was no difference between that and 'fixing' a deaf child. The problem with this thinking is that the blind do not have a community; they do not have a language or their own culture. The blind don't have difficulties communicating with seeing people. That is the difference between the blind and the deaf.

Biased

[Meade87 · 4/10 · 26 January 2005]

I am a current A.S.L. Student & was forced to watch this movie in class, and what I got out of it was the blatant bias involved in the film. The film is obviously leaning towards to P.O.V. of the "common deaf perception" their is no middle ground. Also, the film didn't make mention or take into account other situations that are also under debate in this topic. I.E. Deaf People who were born hearing and later went deaf. Is it right or wrong in that instance? The film is biased and virtually all in the opinion of the Deaf w/ a capital "D". Not that this is bad, but for it to be a true documentary film is should attempt to be slightly unbiased.

Marvellous

[igoraguiar · 27 November 2003]

I just couldn't stop the tears when I saw the reaction of the 9-month-old child hearing for the first time, after the implant. I just started crying, moved by the simple act of a child reacting to the mother's call for the first time ever. Marvellous!

Very powerful and worthwhile

[barkingechoacrosswaves · 10/10 · 26 March 2013]

This film portrays the agonizing of an extended family over the choice of whether to give children born deaf the ability to hear. This decision is much more complex and far more emotionally charged than I as a hearing person had realized before watching the film. Cultural factors, personal and community pride, the historical struggles of deaf people, and concerns about careers to be embarked upon (or not...) far into the future -- these and other considerations are invoked repeatedly in an astonishingly complex debate about whether deafness is something that should be eliminated or whether it should be valued and preserved as a perfectly valid alternative to hearing.

This movie provides a fascinating and powerful window into a world about which I now realize I was profoundly ignorant. I'm very glad I saw it and strongly recommend it to anyone interested in culture, ethics, family dynamics or the deep uncertainties that go along with being human.

What gives a child a choice?

[Tom-2128 · 8/10 · 9 December 2006]

The issue raised by this movie is whether it's OK for parents to have cochlear implants put into their deaf children. One of the arguments against is that it would be making a decision that the child should be allowed to make for himself. As mfriend pointed out, that would be analogous to waiting until the child was 15 and then allowing him to decide whether he wanted to be literate. Since brain plasticity declines with age, if the CI is not implanted reasonably early, the child will not get the full use of it. That means that, to a large extent, the decision will have been made for him. Remember that if a child is taught to read, he can always choose not to later: many do. As cheriesnow pointed out, a child with a CI can choose not to use it. Although the surgery can impose physical limitations (because of the fragility of the equipment) that is due the the current state of the technology. In the future, that should change.

"I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now."

[hitchcockkelly · 8/10 · 27 January 2023]

As I listened to the arguments of the anti-cochlear implant, deaf people in the film, I thought of the Rusty Goodman lyric, "I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now". People are molded by the pain they endure. If people hate you for being deaf or being black or being Jewish, you can either accept their belief that something is wrong with you, or you can defiantly turn your uniqueness into a source of pride. You must decide whether the problem is theirs or yours. If the problem is your race, it's their problem. The difficulty facing the parents of the deaf children in this movie is that real problems accompany the artificial problem of bigotry. There is nothing wrong with being deaf, but being deaf isn't exactly right either. Learning how to tell a child, "Being deaf is OK, but we'd like you to have the advantage of hearing" is a seemingly contradictory message which most people can't get around. I'm a guy with a traditionally girl's name. It caused me some grief as a kid, but now I wouldn't change it for anything. That doesn't mean I would name my boy Sue. The debates in the film are worthy of an Edward Albee drama, and it made me think, but it's hard not to conclude that deaf parents deciding not to allow their children to hear is more about them than the children.

Deaf World vs CI

[cheriesnow · 7 November 2005]

I have been involved with the Deaf world for about 20 years and when I saw this film I was deeply moved, but not the way most of the viewers who commented were. I see the Deaf world as a minority and this film, though showing that Deaf Culture is precious to Deaf people, seemed to leave that part out. If we had a pill that would turn African Americans or other racial groups white, would we want them to take it so their lives would be made easier? I don't think so. It is the same with Deaf people. They do not see themselves as handicapped. They can do everything that hearing people can do, except hear. It is we, the hearing community, not the Deaf themselves, that limit them. With the CI, not one mentioned that that boy would be limited in the choices he would be able to make in school, that he would not be able to participate in sports for the most part. That choice was taken away from him. I have seen this before and I have seen how hurt the deaf boy was. So hurt in fact that he stopped using the CI and entered the Deaf world while he was still in high school. But it was too late for him to experience basketball, football, swimming, baseball. He could only sit on the sidelines and watch as his friends, both deaf and hearing, played. As with the deaf girl with the CI in the deaf family, her speech was not that clear, but the deaf father said that her grandmother said it was perfect. How ironic. Do you think the hearing children she played with thought so?

It also did not talk about the dangers of the CI surgery. It is brain surgery and it is seldom that the dangers of infections to the brain and the resulting consequences are spoken of. It didn't talk of the paralysis that sometimes occurs or the fact that it might not work. The surgeon told the parents that their son would hear. He didn't tell them any negatives. Personally, I would not want to have surgery until I could understand all of the ramifications and risks involved.

I felt that this film leaned heavily on the promotion of CI surgery as a cure-all for deafness. It left many issues untouched. The Deaf parents were called abusive by several of the people in the film. I don't see it as abuse. They were willing to allow their child to make the decision at a later date. The girl was learning language, it just wasn't spoken. The CI by it's very nature turns a deaf child away from the culture by emphasizing speech and hearing and de-emphasizing sign language. The hearing mother of the deaf son was making sure that it would be difficult for her son to communicate with her Deaf parents. She is content to take from the Deaf world as an interpreter, but she is also willing to insult it when her own child is born deaf. The film was interesting, but it did not come close to looking at many of the important issues of the Deaf World and CI.

a true portrayal of a deaf family

[stellaluna1125 · 18 December 2000]

I am currently living with a deaf step sister and her deaf boyfriend. I have heard many times from my step mother that her daughter wanted to have a deaf child. I know that this may sound selfish, but there is reason behind it. She wanted to be able to connect with her child on the same level, the same way a hearing person would not wish to have a deaf child, there is something missing there.

When I saw this movie, I was able to see both sides of the story, it was very touching to me personally. I thought that it was so interesting the way everyone's values were in different places. This is such a good movie and it really portrays the dynamic of living in deaf household.

If you ever thought about how many ways people can be different, you should really watch this movie.

A hard of hearing person's review (kinda)

[kristijanmodrusan · 22 September 2021]

Not quite sure if I watched this movie or some other(s) with similar topic, but as a person who's partly deaf and partly hard of hearing - if your kid is HAVING an opportunity to hear (somewhat) normally, the Deaf way of life shouldn't be a burden. Because ears, together with fingers and mouth, are there for a reason - to speak, communicate, hear various sounds (music, birds, talking), socialize with people around, etc. No one should be deprived of hearing, no matter what's the case. Because, being deaf has its uniqueness, but not at the expense of your child's future, due to being Deaf, thinking that will disrupt the Deaf community, way of life or whatnot. End of discussion.