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.
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.