Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
(USA, 97 min.)
Dir. Shoshannah Stern
Programme: U.S. Documentary Competition (World premiere)
Being the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award proved an historic moment for Marlee Matlin, but seeing her CODA co-star Troy Kotsur get an Oscar three decades later may have been more satisfying. Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore considers the fight for onscreen representation in Hollywood through the perspective of an actor who was long considered an exception to exclusionary casting practices.
Director Shoshanna hStern makes an impressive feature directorial debut by using the ups and downs of Matlin’s career to ask bigger questions about inclusion and accessibility. The film makes headway of its own by featuring conversational interviews between Stern, who is also Deaf, and Matlin, among other subjects, told entirely through subtitled American Sign Language. When Stern interviews hearing participants, they receive an audio translation through an earpiece. It’s inaudible to the audience, as Stern smartly considers the diversity of viewers taking in the words.
The doc itself offers compelling evidence that accessible filmmaking doesn’t pose a barrier for audiences. Especially in an era when audiences are subtitle agnostic, and with younger audiences favouring subtitles anyway in the age of TikTok and ASMR, Not Alone Anymore demonstrates that it’s really status quo thinking to blame for the slow road to change.
The film revisits the historic moment when Matlin, just 19 years old, scored the lead as Sarah in the bigscreen adaptation of the play Children of a Lesser God. She remembers the part with mixed emotions. On one hand, Matlin shares her excitement playing such a complex Deaf character. On the other, she acknowledges that the narrative frame is complicated, as the story centres on a young woman at a school for Deaf students who falls in love with a hearing teacher. There’s still an awkward dynamic that posits speaking as normalcy as Sarah’s voice remains reduced to vocalization.
Other perspectives see actors like Kotsur and Lauren Ridloff tell what it meant for them to see Matlin accept the Oscar. They remember the film and her win as a moment where they felt seen and could see their dreams validated. But they too note how little changed, with Ridloff adding that Children of a Lesser God still offers the token rite of passage for Deaf actresses. (Stern, tellingly, also performed in a revival of the play.)
Stern weaves Matlin’s personal journey to the Oscar stage to convey just how hard it is for one Deaf actor to get the chance she did. Matlin looks back on her childhood in which her parents expressed guilt over the fact that she lost her hearing following an illness. They gave her hearing aids and Matlin learned to speak, so the complexity Sarah experiences is one the actress lived. Without community theatre for Deaf youths, she might not be in the position she is today.
Perhaps the biggest reveal in the documentary comes not in a conversation about Matlin’s career, but in a domestic scene. When Matlin attends a pizza party with her brothers and their wives, nobody signs. They just talk. Matlin must frequently ask questions to fill in gaps of the conversation. Other times, she sits there visibly bored and excluded from the discussion.
Later in the film, Kotsur remembers a moment in CODA that Matlin improvised during a scene in which their characters sat in a performance hall, unable to hear their daughter sing because the concert had no accessibility conversations. Her improvised nudge, signing, “What do you want for dinner tonight?” mid-concert may be the authentic moment that makes the film click.
Matlin’s own family never bothered to learn ASL, which makes clear why her advocacy in Hollywood became so self-directed. Matlin admits to Stern that she never really planned to become an advocate. Only a teenager when she had her big break, she nevertheless seized the opportunity thrust upon her. Archival clips show Matlin in interviews with her interpreter, addressing the need for captioning in television and fiercely advocating for accessibility rights, particularly when serving as a pundit during the 1988 student protests at Gallaudet University when the body of Deaf students refused to accept another hearing president. (The episode itself the subject of Sundance doc Deaf President Now!)
The film frequently circles back to the shoot of Children of a Lesser God to explore Matlin’s journey. Among them, of course, is her turbulent relationship with co-star William Hurt. Stern smartly replays the moment when Hurt, presenting the Best Actress Oscar after winning Best Actor the previous year, seems visibly and audibly unenthusiastic about Matlin’s win. Matlin recalls feeling terrified in the moment given Hurt’s history of abusive behaviour. She goes on to recount in unnerving detail what Hurt did to her as they both struggled with addiction. The allegations aren’t necessarily new, as Matlin outlined them in her 2009 memoir. (Hurt died in 2022.) Nevertheless, the account demonstrates Matlin’s outspokenness in Hollywood by sharing such stories from the set years before #MeToo.
Not Alone Anymore culminates with Matlin’s triumphant return to the Oscars having fought to ensure that the actor who played her onscreen husband was also Deaf. The Oscar wins for CODA, Kotsur, and director/writer Sîan Heder, met with signed applause, offer a long overdue step forward. But Matlin wants to remind Hollywood that the push can’t end at the Oscars once again.
This intimate and insightful self-portrait goes beyond the usual celebrity formula to offer a necessary case study in representation. Matlin shares her frustration that she barely received the same consideration as other actors even though she achieved the highest honour in the industry. After an Oscar win, she mainly got small roles, guest spots on television—notably all parts written as Deaf characters. But Stern’s appreciative portrait gives Matlin fair credit for refusing to complacent as the only person in the room and using her experience to advocate for change. People often use the saying of putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, but perhaps Matlin’s story is one of recognizing the future in one’s hands.
