‘Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore’ Review: The Trailblazing Deaf Oscar Winner Opens Up in a Winning Documentary

In her documentary “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” the star continues to explore the at times lonesome space she has occupied since bursting on the scene in 1986: that of being a representative for deaf people, and being herself. For more than three decades, Matlin was the only deaf performer to have won an Oscar, and among the few to have what could be considered a mainstream acting career. That changed when Troy Kotsur, her co-star in the 2021 Oscar-winning drama “CODA,” took home the prize for best supporting actor.

At 19, Matlin was cast opposite William Hurt in the adaptation of the play “Children of a Lesser God.” She portrayed Sarah Norman, a janitor in a school for the deaf. Hurt’s character is a speech teacher. She resists speaking. He says he won’t push her to speak but then does. After production, Hurt became Matlin’s romantic partner. So, you may find something off when the documentary shows Hurt opening the envelope on Oscar night and announcing that Matlin has won. Jane Fonda, nominated in the same category, looks happier for Matlin than Hurt. Later, it would emerge that Matlin’s relationship with the 35-year-old was fraught. The actress states that he became physically and emotionally abusive. (Hurt, who died in 2022, rebutted this claim.)

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Being heralded wasn’t the same as being understood. The film critic Rex Reed’s grim intro into a (positive!) review of “Children of  Lesser God” hasn’t aged well. Though it’s now hard to imagine “[do] you ever wonder what it’s like to be deaf? It’s a strange and frightening world…” ever not being a vexing lead-in. But Reed wasn’t the only offender. There are many cringe-worthy moments in how Matlin was covered by the media. In retrospect, figureheads may flinch at their own clumsiness in interviewing her.

Directed by Shoshannah Stern, who is hearing impaired, the documentary — made for the “American Masters” series and premiering at Sundance — is both straightforward and subtle. In shifting between captioning and interpretation, between American Sign Language and spoken word, Matlin and her director make clear the fluid ways that deaf people move through a world. The doc possesses a flexible form that rightly insists the rest of us lean in.

Even Matlin’s loved ones didn’t always do that. The youngest of three children, the actress became deaf at 18 months old. The film makes clear it wasn’t easy being the deaf child of hearing parents and siblings. When Matlin is seen returning to her childhood home in Illinois, her visit with her two brothers underscores how easy it might have been for them and their parents (who are now deceased) to forget to actively draw Marlee into family time. They do just that it in a noisy scene in which Matlin looks at the camera and signs her frustration.

If her family proves loving but not always the most practiced of allies, Matlin still has her champions. Henry Winkler is a central and endearing figure in the doc. He met her when she was a star-struck kid and he was the Fonz. Aaron Sorkin, who cast her in “The West Wing,” emphasizes her skills. “She has a lot of dexterity with language,” he says. (Matlin wrote the bestselling memoir “I’ll Scream Later,” published in 2009.) Sorkin’s assessment is supported by a funny scene with Bradley Whitford’s Josh Lyman. Her nimbleness as an actress is even more apparent in a clip from the show “The Practice,” where her character has a vigorous disagreement with her attorney, played by Camryn Manheim, that moves between signing, speech and furious silence. Matlin was nominated for an Emmy for that guest appearance.

Having worked together on the Sundance Channel series “This Close,” Matlin and her director Stern have rapport. (Stern even played Sara in a stage production of “Children of a Lesser God.”) Seen facing each other on a couch, the two converse with the ease of good friends. Their shared knowledge about the challenges of “language deprivation” (a phrase describing the extra work a person must do to gather information) adds to their camaraderie and to the film’s layers.

Accompanying Matlin for most of those public moments was her interpreter Jack Johnson, initially hired by Hurt. Matlin and Johnson have become lifelong friends, and he proves insightful about the challenges she faced, including leaving Hurt and getting sober.

The film’s “Not Alone Anymore” subtitle is apt beyond its lead-up to Kotsur’s Oscar win. Even the documentary is not alone in grappling with the issues of those in the deaf community. Two years after Matlin won her statuette, students at Gallaudet University, the only college dedicated to those who are hearing impaired, protested the hiring of a hearing person to helm the school, which has never had a deaf leader. The student boycott and activism are intercut in the doc, but the roiling protests also get their own close-up in another documentary at this year’s Sundance, “Deaf President Now!” Not alone anymore, indeed.