At First Sight
USA 1998
Reviewed by Geoffrey Macnab
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
New York-based architect Amy Benic heads out of town to rest and relax at a rural hotel where she meets Virgil Adamson, the hotel masseur. Amy strikes up a friendship with Virgil, only belatedly realising he is blind. They become lovers. Virgil's protective older sister Jennie is deeply suspicious of Amy, and worries Amy will abandon Virgil. Amy discovers there could be a way of restoring Virgil's sight but he is reluctant to put himself through an operation which might fail. However, he eventually agrees and his sight is restored. At first, he finds vision deeply disorienting and continues to rely more on his sense of touch as he learns to use his eyes. He moves to New York with Amy, but struggles to adjust to his new life, and their relationship is put under strain. Virgil's father, who abandoned him and his sister many years before, now wants to make amends, but Virgil refuses to meet him.
It transpires the operation has not been a complete success; Virgil will soon lose his eyesight. He finally confronts his father and breaks up with Amy. She realises she was pushing him too hard. Blind again, Virgil takes a job with a visual therapist, Phil Webster. Amy tracks Virgil down in the park - it is clear that they still love each other.
Review
In W. C. Fields' It's a Gift, a blind man leaves a trail of chaos in his wake and confounds everybody who tries to treat him with kid gloves. Fields may have been motivated by misanthropy, but at least he didn't patronise or pity his subject. At First Sight does both. Based on a true story by Dr Oliver Sacks, this is one of those self-righteous, sermonising melodramas which Hollywood occasionally makes about the afflicted.
Mark Isham's score, full of tinkly little piano bits which rekindle memories of Richard Clayderman, signals from the outset that the film will be very slushy indeed. Much of the dialogue chimes in perfectly with the music: "I can feel everything when it rains," Virgil rhapsodises when he is caught in a storm. He is the strong, sensual, poetic type who relies on his senses of smell and touch to judge character. His being a masseur also enables the film-makers to include several scenes of him rubbing oil on Amy's shapely back.
Although Val Kilmer's Virgil has a well-nigh permanent smirk on his face, he's supposed to be naive and gentle, instinctively understanding of what Amy feels, unlike the yuppies in her architectural firm. After the supremely novelettish beginning, the film briefly turns into a medical drama hinging on whether Virgil's sight can be restored. Jargon is lobbed to and fro by vaguely sinister-looking men in white coats as he prepares for the operation. Then, in a powerful and disquieting scene, the bandages are removed and Virgil is confronted by a blur of terrifying imagery.
To do justice to Virgil's burgeoning alarm and wonder at the world he's seeing for the first time would take a far more imaginative film-maker than Irwin Winkler, a producer-turned-director who conspicuously lacks visual flair. Here, despite the efforts of cinematographer John Seale (The English Patient, City of Angels), we're offered stock images of the New York skyline or shots of Virgil staring in confusion at his own mirror image. At least, when his sight is restored, Virgil stops grinning and gets truculent and bad tempered. As he puts it, "seeing sucks," and it's during these scenes that Kilmer's performance briefly flickers into life.
This may be adapted from a true story, but it follows the contours of the most manipulative tearjerker. The fact that Virgil is an ardent ice-hockey fan rekindles memories of the equally maudlin Love Story, in which Ryan O'Neal was similarly enthusiastic about the sport. There are also echoes of Good Will Hunting, with Kilmer as the outsider who needs guidance from a cuddly and eccentric therapist (Nathan Lane here, Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting) to quell his inner demons.
Unfortunately, catharsis does not come quickly enough. The film drags on for more than two hours before Winkler signs off with yet another of the film's endless crane shots - the camera soars into the air as the couple walk away into the distance, an appropriately cornball ending for a film which feels contrived and phoney from start to finish.
Credits
- Producers
- Irwin Winkler
- Rob Cowan
- Screenplay
- Steve Levitt
- Based on the article To See and Not See by Oliver Sacks first published in 'The New Yorker' and included in his collection An Anthropologist on Mars
- Director of Photography
- John Seale
- Editor
- Julie Monroe
- Production Designer
- Jane Musky
- Music
- Mark Isham
- ©Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc
- Production Company
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures presents an Irwin Winkler film
- Line Producer
- Roger Paradiso
- Production Associate
- So Yun Roe
- Production Co-ordinator
- Terry Ladin
- Unit Production Manager
- Roger Paradiso
- Location Manager
- Antoine Douaihy
- Assistant Directors
- Tom Reilly
- Patrick J. Mangan
- Shawn Griffith
- Eric W. Henriquez
- Script Supervisor
- Sheila Paige
- Casting
- Billy Hopkins
- Suzanne Smith
- Kerry Barden
- Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- Associates:
- Jennifer McNamara
- Mark Bennett
- Camera Operator
- Bruce MacCallum
- Steadicam Operators
- Jim McConkey
- Larry McConkey
- Kyle Rudolph
- Wescam Operator
- David Norris
- Digital Visual Effects
- Pacific Title/Mirage Studios
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Patrice Dinhut
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Mark Brown
- Compositing Artists:
- Jeff Wells
- Oliver Sarda
- Jennifer Law-Stump
- Patrick Phillips
- Matte Painter:
- Rachel Kelley
- Visual Effects Co-ordinator:
- Michelle McGrail
- Imaging Supervisor:
- Tom Gorey
- Editorial:
- Greg DeCamp
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Connie Brink
- Foreman:
- Richard Tice
- Computer Display Graphics
- Mann Consulting,San Francisco
- Associate Editor
- F. Paul Benz
- Art Director
- Robert Guerra
- Set Decorator
- Susan Bode
- Storyboards
- Warren Drummond
- Costume Designer
- John Dunn
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- Tim Alberts
- Hartsell Taylor
- Key Make-up
- Rosemarie Zurlo
- Key Hairstylist
- Romaine Greene
- Main/End Titles Design
- Nina Saxon/New Wave Entertainment
- Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Violin Solos
- Sid Page
- Music Conductor/Orchestrations
- Ken Kugler
- Additional Orchestrations
- Nick Lane
- Frank Macchia
- Music Supervisor
- Stephan R. Goldman
- Music Editors
- Tom Carlson
- Additional:
- Denise Okimoto
- Recorder/Mixer
- Stephen Krause
- Soundtrack
- "Love Is Where You Are" by Mark Isham, Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, performed by Diana Krall; "It Never Entered My Mind" by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, performed by George Shearing; "They Can't Take That Away from Me" by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, performed by (1) Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, (2) Diana Krall; "Purpose to Be" by Nadirah Shakoor, Adrian Gurvitz, performed by Nadirah Shakoor; "Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)" by Lonnie Simmons, Rudolph Taylor, Charles Wilson, performed by The Gap Band; "Mack the Knife" by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Marc Blitzstein, performed by Diana Krall; "Slapshot - The New York Rangers' Goal Theme" by Raymond Castoldi, performed by Bad Apple; "A Kiss to Build a Dream on" by Oscar Hammerstein II, Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar, performed by Louis Armstrong; "Let's Keep It Going on" by Jeff Coplan, Christian Beerman, Frank Beerman, performed by She Moves; "Y.M.C.A." by Henri Belolo, Jacques Morali, Victor Willis, performed by Village People; "Easy Come Easy Go" by Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, performed by Diana Krall
- Production Sound Recorder
- James Sabat
- Re-recording Sound Mixers
- Kevin O'Connell
- Greg P. Russell
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Michael O'Farrell
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Michael Haight
- Dialogue Editors
- Alison Fisher
- Susan Shackelford
- Effects Editors
- Scott A. Jennings
- Paul Berolzheimer
- Bruce Nyznik
- ADR
- Recordist:
- David Lucarilli
- Mixers:
- Howard London
- Jeff Gomillion
- Editor:
- Laura Graham
- Foley
- Artists:
- Andy Malcolm
- Goro Koyama
- Recordist:
- Rebecca Wright
- Mixers:
- Ron Mellegers
- Tony Van Der Akker
- Editor:
- Willard Overstreet
- Technical Consultants
- Paul Rutkowski
- Susanna E. Green
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Frank Ferrara
- Animal Trainer
- Steve McAuliff
- Helicopter Pilot
- Al Cerullo
- Film Extract
- Austin Powers International Man of Mystery
(1997)- Cast
- Val Kilmer
- Virgil Adamson
- Mira Sorvino
- Amy Benic
- Kelly McGillis
- Jennie Adamson
- Steven Weber
- Duncan Allanbrook
- Bruce Davison
- Dr Charles Aaron
- Ken Howard
- Virgil's father
- Nathan Lane
- Phil Webster
- Laura Kirk
- Betsy Ernst
- Margo Winkler
- Nancy Bender
- Diana Krall
- singer
- Brett Robbins
- Ethan
- Willie Carpenter
- Jack Falk
- Charles Winkler
- health instructor
- Drena De Niro
- Caroline
- Kelly Chapman Meyer
- Susan
- Jack Dodick
- Dr Goldman
- Nina Griscom
- Christie Evans
- Mortimer B. Zuckerman
- homeless man
- Gene Kirkwood
- Marshall
- Richard Euell
- Carl Kipling
- Carl Matusovich
- Tommy
- John W. Guidera
- Virgil's co-worker
- Jack Cooper
- overweight man
- Jennifer Wachtell
- Eva
- Marty Davey
- school mother
- Ben Wolfe
- bass player
- Casey W. Harris
- Casey
- Ricky Trammell
- loft D.J.
- J.P. Patterson
- waiter
- Bonnie Deutsch
- worker
- Sheryl Allington Carter
- Oliver Sacks
- Angela Wang
- Claude Ravier
- reporters
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 11,598 feet
- 128 minutes 52 seconds
- Digital DTS sound/DTS stereo
- Colour by
- DeLuxe