80
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasAn exceptionally adroit adaptation of a play to the screen. As a film, it flows beautifully under Randa Haines' direction and has considerable humor as well as dramatic intensity. It is a classic love story--romantic, passionate, involving vibrant characters.
- 90Washington PostPaul AttanasioWashington PostPaul AttanasioTo appreciate Children of a Lesser God, you only have to imagine how it could have patronized the deaf by celebrating their pluck, or become a heartwarming tale of little people who solve their big problems. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's quite an achievement.
- 90Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyYou can hear the silence, the palpable quiet in director Randa Haines' skillful adaptation of stage's "Children of a Lesser God." The polemic drama of deaf rights translates into a heart-pounding love story -- the most passionately performed since "Officer and a Gentleman."
- 80TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineDespite this flaw, several dramatic lulls, and an aggressive determination to "sparkle," the film often makes for crackling good drama with plenty of leavening humor and magnificent performances by Hurt and newcomer Matlin.
- 80Time OutTime OutTheir relationship is both a genuinely touching love story and a clever gloss on the barriers and extensions of language. It also contains a truly didactic other-dimension which points out some very salutary things about our often unintentional slights towards the deaf, without being either a simple sob or an issue story.
- 80TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard Schickel[Matlin] has an unusual talent for concentrating her emotions--and an audience's--in her signing. But there is something more here, an ironic intelligence, a fierce but not distancing wit, that the movies, with their famous ability to photograph thought, discover in very few performances. Children of a Lesser God, though given a handsome openness in Director Haines' production, cannot transcend the banalities of the play. But Matlin does. She is, one might say, a miracle worker.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertBy telling the whole story from Hurt's point of view, the movie makes the woman into the stubborn object, the challenge, the problem, which is the very process it wants to object to...This objection aside, Children of a Lesser God is a good but not a great movie. The subject matter is new and challenging, and I was interested in everything the movie had to tell me about deafness.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyWatching Children of a Lesser God, the screen adaptation of Mark Medoff's 1980 Broadway play, is like being on a cruise to nowhere aboard a ship with decent service and above-par fast-food. Everything has been carefully programmed so that there are no surprises, no discoveries, nothing to do except to sit -with eyes propped open - and applaud the crew's efficiency.
- 50Chicago ReaderPat GrahamChicago ReaderPat GrahamI suppose the constant repetition is necessary (Matlin's character only communicates through sign language), but it points up the film/play's willingness to sacrifice situational truth for didactic accessibility.