"Wonderstruck" Creates A Welcome Moment for Deaf Cinema

"Wonderstruck" Creates A Welcome Moment for Deaf Cinema
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Todd Haynes — who has previously directed exclusively adult-oriented films like Carol, Safe, Velvet Goldmine, and Far From Heaven — may seem like an odd choice to helm a movie that is ostensibly for kids. But in the case of Wonderstruck, an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s best-selling book about two deaf children from different eras who take unescorted trips to New York City, Haynes’ talent with actors and his mastery of period combine to create a film that both kids and adults can enjoy. But, more importantly, Wonderstruck is a film that will have a particular resonance for the hearing impaired, and even more for deaf children, who can finally have the kind of film that hearing children and adults have long taken for granted. Watch the trailer for Wonderstruck here.

Wonderstruck interweaves the stories of Rose (Millicent Simmonds) in 1927, who was born deaf, and Ben (Oakes Fegley) in 1977, who has recently lost his hearing in a freak accident. Rose lives in New Jersey with her doctor father (James Urbaniak), who keeps her isolated at home out of the embarrassment he feels for having a daughter with a disability. Rose’s only connection to the outside world are the clippings in her scrapbook, where she follows the life and career of her absent mother, silent film actress Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore). Ben lives with relatives in rural Minnesota following the death of his vivacious librarian mother (Michelle Williams). When Rose learns that Lillian is performing in a play in New York, she escapes her home and travels to the city to find her. Fifty years later, Ben boards a bus for Manhattan after finding a clue in a book that may help him find the father he’s never met. Both journeys lead Rose and Ben to New York’s iconic American Museum of Natural History, where new allies (Cory Michael Smith and Jaden Michael) attempt to help them solve their mysteries until the parallel timelines meet.

In Selznick’s book, Rose’s story is told entirely through illustrations to evoke the visual, soundless world she knows, while Ben’s story is told through prose to reflect the more verbal world Ben has grown up with and is slowly losing. In the film, Haynes cleverly translates this by showing Rose’s sections as a sparkling black and white silent film with only an accompanying orchestral score, while Ben’s portions are in the grimy, yellowed haze of a noisy city during a hot New York summer. It’s in these period details — with New York’s glamorous, jazz-age ascendency in 1927 contrasted with its crime-ridden, impoverished decline that culminated with the insult of the 1977 citywide blackout — where Haynes and his production team really shine.

Fortunately, it’s not the only place. The idea of a child taking a solo adventure into the adult world to solve a mystery and learn about her past (especially where a missing parent is involved) is well-trod territory for kids movies. But with Haynes at the helm and with his team creating the most realistic world possible, Wonderstruck, while appropriate for kids, does not feel like a movie made solely for kids. The excitement, intrigue, frustrations, peril, and emotions the kids are confronted with feel completely real, neither watered down nor built up to keep children’s attention. The wonders and mysteries Rose and Ben explore don’t come from magic or fantasy, but the discovery of a world, individuals, and a past that are more fascinating, beautiful, complex, and nuanced than their young minds could have imagined. These are all things that any adult or parent should be able to relate to.

Yet perhaps the most unique thing about Wonderstruck is not just that it portrays deafness, but how it does it. While almost all of us will lose at least part of our hearing with old age, there is a small percentage of children who will be born deaf or will become deaf at an early age, and there is very little in the entertainment world that reflects their reality. As an Asian American who grew up hardly ever seeing Asian American characters who resembled anything like myself, my friends, or our families, I strongly believe that representation in popular culture can make those in minorities feel more understood and less alone. It’s exciting to imagine how deaf children and adults will react to seeing a movie made by an A-list team that depicts two deaf children embarking on the kind of adventure that has been such a staple of cinema for decades.

In addition to this, there’s the fact that the production did so much to embrace and learn from deaf culture, consulting with deaf scholars and hiring deaf actors whenever possible, including Millicent Simmonds, who was born deaf and for whom Wonderstruck is her film debut. So as deaf children watch a film about what deaf children can discover and achieve, they will be watching a deaf child doing the same in real life. And that is both rare and special.

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