‘Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore’ Review: A Vibrant Doc Portrait

First, manage your expectations: This bio-documentary doesn’t reveal much that its subject, the actor Marlee Matlin, hasn’t already discussed — particularly in her own 2009 memoir I’ll Scream Later, in which she frankly addressed her struggles with addiction, sexual abuse experienced in childhood, and alleged violence at the hands of early boyfriend, the actor William Hurt.

But Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore does offer an engaging, exuberant portrait of the relentlessly likeable Matlin as she enters her 60s, having achieved a substantial amount in career terms — from being the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award for her lead turn in Children of a Lesser God, to advocating before the U.S. Congress that closed captions be mandatory, and generally being a voice, in every sense, for the deaf community.

In fact, as the film explains in one of its most interesting passages, she took flack from some in that community for literally speaking instead of signing when presenting the Best Actor Oscar the year after she won her own. All in all, aside from profiling Matlin, this film also touches on hearing-impaired identity and expression in a way that very few films have done so far. It helps that it was directed by a deaf woman, Shoshannah Stern, who appears here as an onscreen figure, sock-clad feet on the couch with a similarly supine Matlin as the two conduct an animated conversation entirely in American Sign Language, translated into color-coded subtitles to help the hearing-able understand what’s being said and who’s saying it.

That thoughtful approach to graphics is of a piece with this package’s professional finish overall, from the nimble editing to the slightly overemphatic but slick musical soundtrack. And to be honest, this never stops feeling like a film made to play to the sympathetic audiences of a festival like Sundance, where it premieres in the U.S. Documentary Competition before it moves to maybe limited release and most likely streaming platforms.

But while that cozy sense of watching a film made for viewers already interested and well disposed towards Matlin never ebbs, this is still immensely watchable, not least thanks to Matlin’s still incandescent natural charisma. Chainstitching its way through Matlin’s life story in that it keeps looping back chronologically but largely goes forward, Not Alone Anymore starts with the film debut that instantly made Matlin famous and won her that Oscar. Randa Haines explains how she spotted Matlin, just 19 years old at the time, in a supporting role in the Chicago production of Children of a Lesser God and was immediately struck by her. She invited Matlin to audition for the lead role, running lines with Hurt himself for the film adaptation Haines was directing. The actors’ immediate chemistry, onscreen and off, sealed the deal.

Very soon, the two became a couple, and Matlin is generous enough to acknowledge what she learned from Hurt professionally by watching his “Method” approach, even if she isn’t much of a Method actor herself. (Stern asks if Matlin has ever met a woman actor who is full-on Method, which draws a chuckling “no” in response, an interaction that’s likely to draw cynical belly laughs at screenings.) Their passionate affair was partly fueled by drug abuse as much as desire, and soon friends like interpreter Jack Jason, who’s worked with Matlin throughout her career, were seeing the bruises on her body after their frequent fights. But the performance on screen was a scorcher, leading to a well-deserved Academy Award win as well as trophies from many other bodies.

The problem was after playing Sarah in Children — the role every deaf actress plays at least once in her career, several interviewees note here — there weren’t many other obvious parts Matlin could take. At least by the 1990s, writers such as The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin, interviewed here, were thinking of ways to incorporate more diverse talents like Matlin into their scripts, giving her the recurring role of tough-as-acrylic-nails campaign manager turned pollster Joey Lucas.

Eventually, Matlin carved out a comfy niche for herself in television, with a goodly number of film gigs on the side until Sian Heder’s CODA came along, a comic-drama about a family of deaf people with one hearing-able daughter (Emilia Jones), the titlular “child of deaf adults”. Matlin played the protagonist’s mother, as ever projecting a simmering sensuality that clicks on screen with Troy Kotsur as her husband. The latter of course went on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, while the film won Best Picture, leading Matlin to feel, per this film’s subtitle, not alone anymore with her once-singular awards achievement.

However, this isn’t just a career retrospective. Stern gives a lot of screentime to interviews with Matlin’s friends and family, such as her brothers, who tried to support her as best as they could in a family where Marlee was the only deaf person. (Also, those who haven’t read Matlin’s memoir may be surprised to learn she’s from a Jewish family.) The focus never strays far from Matlin herself, though, as archive footage is incorporated to illustrate her fight to make closed captioning mandatory, her advocacy for deaf rights, and her evolving understanding of the complex issues around deaf identity.

There are side detours into subjects like the 1988 battle over the appointment of a non-deaf president for Gallaudet University, America’s premier university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, which students and supporters like Matlin protested, resulting in the appointment of the school’s first deaf president, I. King Jordan. But sensitive, fluent editing keeps these excursions germane to Matlin’s story, making this more than just a tribute to one bright, interesting woman.