This adaptation of Mark Medoff's poignant play, about a woman for whom life's challenge is the fact that she cannot hear, picks up even more resonance in its understanding of the casual slights we inflict upon the hearing-impaired. William Hurt is subtly complex as the speech therapist attracted to his pupil, but it's the first-time performance by deaf actress Marlee Matlin that brilliantly articulates both a character and a condition. She deservedly won an Oscar for her powerful portrayal.

Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.