At First Sight
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Movie Reviews of At First Sight
Movie Review: "God, this can't be seeing!!"
Summary: 3 Stars
AT FIRST SIGHT (1998, 1999) is based on a true story, investigated by Dr. Oliver Sacks and recounted in his book, "An Anthropologist on Mars". Sacks writes of Shirl Jennings, a 50-year-old blind man who lost his sight around age 10; 40 years later, with super-advanced cataract surgery, he regains his sight.
OK...enough history for the moment. This film is dreadful as film. Though I wish I'd seen it when it was new, it certainly hasn't improved with age. The lines are sometimes stupid, the acting is a horror (considering the talents of Val Kilmer, Nathan Lane and the others). The direction is anything but tight. The first hour of this 2-hour film is dedicated to Kilmer's goofy grins and at certain moments, imitations of Stevie Wonder.
Kilmer plays Virgil, the character based on Shirl Jennings, a young blind masseur who fatefully meets Amy (a dreadful, amateurish Mira Sorvino). They fall in love, she wants him to be able to see again, and gets him in to see a doctor (the great Bruce Davison) who can indeed cure his blindness with surgery. So far, so ho-hum. After all, it took an hour just to establish Virgil is blind and basically happy. The medical part isn't even addressed until much further than an hour into this.
Aside from the obvious questions about blindness, sight, and their meanings, I find this story addresses something bigger: disability/disease in general. How we accept the disabled, the needs and conditions. We're bad at accepting. It never surprises me to know blindness is at the heart of this insensitive law of human nature. On her first visit to Virgil's home, Amy leaves a chair away from the table and Virgil promptly smashes into it.
One cannot change the environment of an unsighted person's home. It is like deciding to blind one of your relatives for fun. This film drives home many such powerful thoughts, and the facts are well researched. When Virgil regains his sight, the near madness and struggle is totally accurate. The only real documented case (correct me if I'm wrong) is of a young woman in the 19th century, who nearly went insane when her vision returned. She, of course, lost her sight again and was again happy. Kilmer even uses a few of her lines when he first sees again.
The trouble here is the story and direction. Kilmer gives a somewhat embarrassing performance, and as I said, Sorvino absolutely stinks. The introduction of Nathan Lane as an unconventional teacher of the blind- who is supposed to help Virgil learn to see- is laughable. So is the unnecessary presence of the father who abandoned Virgil and his sister, Jenny (a great turn by Kelly McGillis).
It must be obvious that whatever could be taught by Virgil and Amy is ruined by the insulting old hat that women always want to impossibly change the men in their lives. Also, the revolting hostility between Amy and Jenny (Jenny is "jealous") is as insulting to women as their alleged desire to change all men.
We suffer for our art!
I noticed Dr. Sacks makes an uncredited appearance as an audience member (cheerful grey-bearded fellow at the end). He has worked hard to establish what I call "medical anthropology", a great field that is vital to our health. In short, all of life is a battle of acceptance.
The unsighted may never win that inhumane battle; they may never find the understanding they deserve. This film, had it been better, could have taught us that lesson much better.
Movie Review: Thought-Provoking Story with Good Cast and Overlong Script
Summary: 3 Stars
"At First Sight" delivers the basics of romantic story, but takes too long time to tell its story, so you might want to cut the tape of your own copy to make its running time much shorter. Fortunately, the two leads are very likable characters (and the film credits tell us it is based on a true story), and the chances are you never feel wasted your time.It's about blind Virgil (Val Kilmer), who loves hockey-playing, and New Yorker Amy (Mira Sorvino), who meets Vigil at a hotel, and falls in love with him. As she found an article on the possibility of restoring sight, she suggests he take the chance (actually, the film tells that very few people had ragained their sight after long time of blindness). The operation succeeds, but it turns out much harder than he expected for Virgil to handle the situation with the newly given power of sight. For example, he cannot tell an real apple from a picture of an apple; or he cannot feel the distance between him and what he sees, so things coming in his direction would inevitably hit him in the head. Now he had to learn "seeing." The story is very good.
However, the script is too uneven. We don't need any episodes about Amy's ex-husband; though as Virgil's sister Kelly McGillis shows good performance, she sometimes delays the speed of the film, and seems to tell us too obvious things about Virgil's life. And most of all, the film is making a potentially tragic nature of the original story too sentimental. But as I said before, Kilmer and Sorvino both make such an amiable couple that you may forgive these shortcomings as the film goes on. And wait for always reliable Nethan Lane as a slightly eccentric therapist. He never fails to deliver the good moment though this time a little short. "At First Sight" is an agreeable (though overlong) film.
If you're interested in the medical aspect of the film. read Dr. Oliver Sachs's book "An Anthoropologist on Mars." The film's material originally comes from one of its seven tales called 'To See and Not See.'
Movie Review: too much disease for a modest film
Summary: 3 Stars
This film has two different parts or halves: one is a light love story not very original: Amy, a female architect falls in love with Virgil, a blind physiotherapist. This isn't much until you join the another part, because that's yes, a very big and I think very difficult neuro-physiological problem. Perhaps yes, in the USA that question has been attempted to cure. If yes, I don't know with what results.
Because the core problem is Virgil, practically a person born blind so he never was able to see nothing, is submitted in New York to surgery of his congenital cataracts. Below this relatively simple problem of the eye, solved by ordinary surgery today, he has also the rare disease of retinitis pigmentosa. This disease is real in some few people but the question goes more far than the strictly clinical problem, as Virgil recovers the sight after surgery but although he sees with his eyes, he doesn't know nor understands what are the things and people he sees: the persons, the buildings... nothing. This is because the brain needs training in order to interpret the images. Virgil's brain hasn't that training and he's yet a man over 30 years old.
A hard question. The problem is similar to that of a person which hears a foreign unknown language: he hears, but doesn't understand nothing.
This is an enormous problem as sight is a very delicate sense, very prone to false feelings. I have my doubts if cinema is the best mean to show this difficult question. The movie is solved in routine way but merited more than that.
Movie Review: I can't dislike a Mira Sorvino film
Summary: 3 Stars
The best thing about this film is Mira Sorvino, she is warm and intelligent and beautiful in an approachable way. When her character is sad, you feel. When she's joyful, you smile. These are the qualties of a first rank movie actress, and they are nearly enough to salvage this film. Such is her perfection, I spent much of the film wondering what her character saw in the limited dimwit played by Val Kilmer as the blind man who regains his sight. I know that Kevin Spacey can't be in every drama, but how does Kilmer keep finding lead roles? His acting through emotionless introspection is Steven Wright without the hilarity.Then there is the plot. The problem is that this is a movie and movies demand a three act structure; movies demand building conflicts, obstacles overcome, bad guys, and a tidy ending. Since this film was based on an original "real story", which probably had no resemblance to a movie plot, one was bolted on. Thus the Kelly McGillis character intent on keeping her brother blind and dependent, Sorvino's insane attraction to her jerk ex-husband, Sorvino's discovery that she'd rather be a sculptor than an architect, and Kilmer's dealing with his deadbeat dad; all very artificial.
So my advice is rent it, don't own it; and hope Ms. Sorvino finds better material to showcase her enormous ability.
Movie Review: Nice story, good execution, way too long.
Summary: 3 Stars
While this movie is full of the little things needed to create a well-crafted romantic movie, and the actors are stupendous and play their parts to the fullest, the plot is just too long to sustain any understanding of the storyline. The movie starts out nicely at a good pace, with Kilmer and Sorvino falling in love at a mountain retreat. The romance looks as though it will make it through anything, until Sorvino introduces the idea of seeing again to Kilmer. This is the point at which the movie takes a long, droning turn, as Kilmer moves to New York with his new love to regain his sight. The plot jumps back and forth between the emotions of the lovers, which may confuse people with smaller brain capacities. There are too many break-ups and make-ups between the two leads, and while this movie is based on an actual story, there could've been one or two of these instances left out to sustain a steady flow. This movie is a good one, don't get me wrong, but the extended length of it makes for a bit of unpleasantness when watching it. My recommendation: rent it before buying it, so you know what you're in for.