What is name of movie about cochlear implant decision?

Question

It's about two families with kids deciding about cochlear implants for their kids versus participation in the Deaf community.

Answer 1

the Hallmark movie, "Sweet Nothing in my Ear," featured Marlee Matlin, Phyllis Frelich and Jeff Daniels.  The movie is based on a Broadway play.  The movie tackles the controversy surrounding cochlear implants, similar to the movie Sound and Fury, which portrayed two families making different decisions about getting cochlear implants for their children.   However, the one family in Sound and Fury went on to get a cochlear implant for their child after the movie was completed.

A NY Times Review on Sound and Fury:

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Sound and Fury (2000)

April 8, 2000

FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; A Tight Little Island In the World of Deafness

By ANITA GATES

Published: April 8, 2000

To many people it's an unexpected viewpoint. ''When all three of my children were born deaf, too,'' says Peter Artinian early in the film ''Sound and Fury,'' ''I thought, 'Great.' '' And he is not being ironic.

A documentary about cochlear implants, the relatively new devices that allow many deaf people to hear, may not sound like anyone's idea of compelling filmmaking, but Josh Aronson's ''Sound and Fury'' -- which follows two branches of a Long Island family through the decision-making process about the implant's use -- is powerful, insightful, important and emotionally wrenching.

The implant is a miracle, really. Most hearing people would assume that any loving parent of a hearing-impaired child would want this piece of medical technology for that child, because it would ease his or her way in the world enormously. For that reason Mr. Artinian's attitude may come as a shock.

Mr. Artinian, his wife, Nita, and their three children are deaf. His daughter, Heather, decides she wants an implant. He is opposed. Chris Artinian, Peter's brother, is not deaf, but he and his wife soon learn that their newborn son is. And they very much want him to have the implant surgery. The opposing viewpoints make for painful family confrontations.

''It's not intended for people to have a handicap,'' says the children's grandfather, who is not deaf, to his son, Peter, over cake and orange juice at the kitchen table. ''If I didn't know you, I would say you were an abusing parent.''

The complicating factor here is deaf culture, the emotional and social bond among nonhearing people who use American Sign Language and have come to cherish their silent world as special and worth preserving. The eagerness of loved ones to jump on the cochlear implant bandwagon comes as a betrayal to some. As Peter says to his mother during a backyard get-together, ''I didn't know that you didn't accept deafness until now.''

''Sound and Fury,'' which is being screened today and tomorrow as part of the 29th New Directions/New Films series at the Museum of Modern Art, is asking some big questions. In a socially aware, socially sensitive culture, we profess to believe that no particular skin color, religion, sexual orientation, political ideology, chronological age or physical attribute is superior to another. We say, in fact, that differences should be celebrated; thus the corporate buzzword of the moment: diversity.

Are the deaf parents in this film calling the culture's bluff? Or is a physical disadvantage truly something that should be celebrated? Do parents have a right to keep their children at a remove from the hearing world just because, in their opinion and experience, deaf is beautiful? Have we gone so far in our fear of offending anyone that we now advocate disadvantages' being deliberately preserved? Or do the hearing-impaired have a right to rear their children within a somewhat separatist subculture? The Amish have been doing that for quite a while.

The most telling event in the film is Nita Artinian's change of heart. In the beginning she supports her daughter Heather's request for the implant and, in fact, wants one herself. But after Nita learns that the implant will be far less helpful to her as an adult, she changes her mind. ''We're afraid that the cochlear implant will change her identity,'' says Nita after a visit to a preschool class of children with implants.

Later, in a scene between mother and daughter, Nita uses the word ''we'' in discussing the decision. Heather corrects her with ''I thought you decided.'' Nita answers: ''Don't you remember? We decided together.''