At First Sight

A case history by Dr Oliver Sacks inspired this story about a blind masseur, Kilmer, who finds love and regains his sight. One suspects, however, that it owes as much to Awakenings, another celluloid Sacks adaptation, where medical science opened the doors to freedom, only for regression to set in. Winkler's film follows pretty much the same pattern, and it's far more persuasive in detailing the physical realities of its protagonist's plight than in working up a sudsy melodrama around Kilmer and Sorvino, the New York architect who changes his life. Though Winkler and cameraman John Seale convey the threatening strangeness of a world newly discovered, they ultimately opt for the Hollywood dysfunction-of-the-week routine, when the ingredients were there for something tougher.