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Deaf Major 
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TITLE |
Breaking Through (1996) (TV Film) |
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ALT__TITLE |
After the
Silence |
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NOTES |
A young deaf
woman, Laura, (14 years old) is injured
escaping from her abusive father.
She is referred by a doctor at hospital to social services. A
woman arrives from the commission for battered women. It
is revealed that the Laura has been locked in her home all her life.
She can't read and doesn't know sign language though she appears to
understand some of the signing by the social worker.
When she is ready to leave the hospital it is difficult to find her a
shelter.
Laura's deafness results from an infection she had aged 6 so why can't
she speak? Her abuse includes being badly burned by a domestic iron.
Showing 'admirable' parent love her father is still trying to get her
back home.
The social worker is told not to get involved but predictably
(this regularly happens in films) she takes Laura back to her
own home.
How is it that medical TV soaps can generally achieve some
level of reality in their treatment of patients but made for TV
films slide off the precipice?
Besides having to learn signing and literacy she has to learn
how to cope with outside world, like shopping.
It is also predictable that the social worker will be romantically
linked with the doctor who first treated her and this happens.
Charges are brought against the father but lawyer says that
Laura won't be good on the witness stand (not even to reveal
her scarred back?) so it is not until the end of the film when
she has become a whole woman do we get into court.
Her progress includes mixing with other disabled people and
later nearly getting raped. The young actress, Kellie Martin,
playing Laura apparently has admirers but she isn't up to a
peculiarly demanding part, i.e. this is a non-speaking role.
Once again I don't think anything has been learned. A very
serious subject has been debased by its treatment. And we
certainly have not been entertained with material that would
barely fill out 60 minutes never mind 90.
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Notes
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