Director: Shoshannah Stern
Cast: Marlee Matlin
98 mins. Not Rated.

Los Angeles. 2022. It’s the night of the 94th Academy Awards. As the film industry restructures itself in the fallout from COVID, Marlee Matlin attends in support of her new film CODA, which has multiple nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for co-star Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor. It’s an important full circle moment for Matlin, as CODA had a strong potential to claim awards, and if Kotsur wins, she won’t be Alone Anymore. As she preps for the possibility, director Shoshannah Stern takes us on a journey through her life and career, the many ups and downs that make a life.

I first became aware of Marlee Matlin as a child, watching Seinfeld with my parents. I didn’t get some of the more adult jokes of the series (let’s be honest, as a 5-year-old, I was there for Kramer and Newman), but I absolutely remember the episode where Jerry dates a BL, or beautiful lineswoman, played by Matlin, who can read lips, and Jerry decides to use her talent for selfish purposes. I knew, even at that young age, that Marlee Matlin had an elegance and strength in her performance. This was someone to watch out for. I hadn’t known then that Matlin was already an Oscar winner for her performance in 1985’s Children of a Lesser God.

I think, for a lot of folks outside the deaf community, it can become easy to dismiss that lone accomplishment but seeing it through Matlin’s eyes as well as those of fellow deaf actors inspired by her shows the importance of that community. Seeing how the deaf community views Children of a Lesser God with both reverence and also understanding of some of its outdated views makes for a fascinating discussion piece, but I loved how this film and Matlin’s win for it serves as a microcosm for her entire life. She uses the statement “Not Alone Anymore” to describe the joy felt when Kotsur won the Oscar, but she’s been on the quest to no longer be alone her entire life. She describes the feeling of growing up in a house as the only deaf person, with a loving family that just didn’t fully understand how she felt. She discusses her time with William Hurt, and the loneliness of being with an abuser. She also demonstrates how she felt being a “representative” of her community and how difficult choices like speaking the nominees at the Academy Awards put her at odds with seemingly everyone.

What’s so inspiring about this view of Marlee Matlin boils down to the resilience and tenacity she showcases in her attempts to find a spot in Hollywood for the deaf community. There’s a quote from the film, “I don’t think Hollywood was ready for deaf actors.” That’s true, and it’s why there wasn’t a barrage of offers heading her way after the Oscar win. Hollywood was not willing to create dynamic and interesting characters for Marlee Matlin, so she had to go out and find those characters herself. It’s also why she felt so strongly about things we take for granted, like her quest to get Closed Captioning on The Wizard of Oz, and her battle to make CC more accessible for all viewers who need it.

Perhaps the most difficult portion of the film surrounds her relationship with William Hurt. At two different parts of the film, we see the Oscar footage of Hurt announcing Matlin as the winner of the Academy Award for Children of a Lesser God, and we see her acceptance speech. When the footage plays the first time, we are overjoyed for her legendary win, but when it replays later in the film, with the knowledge that she was in an abusive relationship with Hurt, terrified that her win would somehow upstage him, wondering how he’d respond to her win. It’s in these places that the documentary wins, using some clever editing techniques to revisit events with new knowledge.

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore tries to squeeze a lot of life into its 98 minutes, and while it can feel overwhelming, it’s also a powerful document on a woman who made a place for herself in Hollywood, someone who fought for herself and others, an actress who presented grace and charm onscreen. It emboldened and inspired me, and I hope you seek it out.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore is currently set for limited release in US theaters on June 20th.