Drama starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino. When architect Amy Benic falls in love with blind masseur Virgil Adamson, she encourages him to have a radical operation to restore his sight. But Virgil does not adjust well to seeing the world for the first time and their relationship begins to suffer.
Like Awakenings, this medical melodrama is also drawn from the casebook of Dr Oliver Sacks, but it's not so dramatically satisfying and markedly less well acted. However, the tale of courage originally told in Sacks's essay To See or Not to See is so remarkable that any filming of it would seem trite and sentimental. Certainly, Val Kilmer's infuriatingly mannered performance as the blind small-town masseur who briefly has his sight restored doesn't help matters, but Kelly McGillis as his sister and Mira Sorvino as his lover give accomplished performances that prevent the material from entering disease-of-the-week TV-movie territory. It's no classic, but it is thoughtful and solidly crafted.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Virgil Adamson | Val Kilmer |
| Amy Benic | Mira Sorvino |
| Jennie Adamson | Kelly McGillis |
| Duncan Allanbrook | Steven Weber |
| Dr Charles Aaron | Bruce Davison |
| Phil Webster | Nathan Lane |
| Virgil's father | Ken Howard |
| Betsy Ernst | Laura Kirk |
| Nancy Bender | Margo Winkler |
| Singer | Diana Krall |
| Ethan | Brett Robbins |
| Jack Falk | Willie Carpenter |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Irwin Winkler |
