MovieChat Forums > Personal Effects (2009) Discussion > WTF????

WTF????

posted 14 years ago by dsc6
7 replies | jump to latest

It wasn't till the end of the movie that I realized how just wrong it was to have narration by the son at the beginning and end of this movie. HE COULD NOT SPEAK!! More reasonable would have been ASL with subtitles. It was totally wrong.

And it was on one of these board messages that I realized just what a throw-away movie this was: Pfeiffer did not bother to learn ASL for this movie. Any mother of a deaf child would be fluent in ASL. There would not have been scenes of her yelling at him off-stage in spoken words. And it is unlikely that a boy of his age would not have learned to read lips nor to speak rudimentally. This was all a plot set-up to lead him to mistakenly try to kill the man charged with and acquited for the murder of Walter's sister. Weak, very weak. And insulting to the huge deaf population.

Viewer manipulation--I hate it. I realize why they didn't show this piece of crap in theaters. Everyone would have demanded his/her money back.

And the thing with a 24 year-old committing to a long-term relationship with a woman who had to be at least 40+ years old--stupid and unbelievable. Obviously, the kid wanted to wrestle. And Michelle Pfeiffer's character--"I know I could take good care of you...." What is she going to be,his big sister, his adopted mother??? Is he going to be the deaf boy's big brother figure? Is it reasonable to expect that he have any plans for his own life???

AND the smoking scenes were, like, from the 1940s....stupid in this day and age.

This was just a badly written and badly executed movie. Don't waste your time.

[–] cheryllchance 14 years ago

i thought it was good..........

She's a real carpenters dream "Flat as a board and needs a screw"

[–] mochuck 14 years ago

Actually she did use ASL but mostly they communicated by lip reading. When you hear yelling at him off camera doesn't mean she isn't signing at the same time. It perfectly natural that she would yell at the same time. Most hearing people talk while they are signing. You obviously have not spent much time around deaf people. Not that it is an issue but don't sermonise about things you aren't familiar with.

As for the smoking - there are still people who smoke. In this movie there was one character who smoked and she lit a cigarette twice - what is 1940s about?

Your other criticism about the relationship - he didn't seem like a person who had a huge amount of ambition. You take love where you find it.

Ignorance never settles a question
Benjamin Disraeli

[–] Anniston 14 years ago

Ashton's real life age difference with his wife is about the same, so not too unbelievable!

If you're not responding to me, "reply" to the post you're responding to. kthanks.

[–] hotrodrasta 14 years ago

I thought it was a really good movie. Thought provoking at times like the scene where Walter beats up the alleged murderer and realises he was so totally wrong to do so.

[–] SCP_One_Seven_Three 14 years ago

There would not have been scenes of her yelling at him off-stage in spoken words.

Well, look at the situation. You hear your son not only got into a fight but also brought a gun to school (assuming that was where he is.) It wouldn't be believable if she sat him down and lectured him. Plus who's to say she wasn't using using ASL or he couldn't read lips?

Other than that, I would agree that this movie just came out crappy. It had potential.

I get it up, I get it up in the dark, I make her feel I'm not a holy man

[–] johnphorn 14 years ago

As a person who is in constant communication with the deaf culture, you're assuming a lot.

1) You assume that all mother's of deaf children become fluent in ASL AND that all deaf people use ASL.

Wrong on both accounts. ASL is a very specific dialect of sign language that causes a gross amount of confusion among hearing users, which is why people generally go to school for years to become interpreters. It is, however, more likely that she would know how to use SEE (Signing Exact English).

2) Sim-comming (simultaneous communication) in both spoken English and SEE is very common for people who are not trained interpreters. Also, it is standard for some to mouth the words being signed so that the deaf person being interpreted to can read lips, if they choose. But it is rude to assume that a deaf person should have to read your lips OR that they can.

3) I have friends who have been deaf their whole lives who choose not to speak because they cannot tell the difference between phonemes and it causes much confusion. They also don't speak because that is not their language. Further, it assumes that the person who is deaf has been deaf their whole life, is absolutely deaf to the point that no sound frequencies are picked up, which we don't know about the son.

As for your other points, it's called fiction. You have to be able to suspend your disbelief.

[–] fiatlux-1 12 years ago

He was an older teenager, he'd been deaf since he was a very young child so why wouldn't he have had time to learn to read lips?

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