Plot

A new speech teacher at a school for the deaf falls in love with the janitor, a deaf woman speechless by choice.

Having taught at the best institutions in the country aside from other more eclectic jobs, James Leeds, with progressive methods, has just started teaching at a school for the deaf on an island off the New England coast, where he is assigned primarily to a speech class for the upper grades. At the school, he quickly notices the young cleaning woman, who he learns is twenty-five year old Sarah Norman and who, deaf herself, was once a student there and has been there since the age of five. He can see that she is bright, headstrong and angry, on top of which she doesn't speak, the latter issues a result of a troubled home life, her mother, her only touchstone to family, who she has purposefully not seen in eight years. As he is able to get through to most of his students to feel more and more comfortable in speaking for a more holistic life, Jim, with the reluctant blessing of the school's superintendent Dr. Curtis Franklin, who has always and still considers Sarah a proverbial pain in the you-know-where, tries to get Sarah to learn how to speak so that she can reach her full potential beyond being a cleaning woman, which he will further learn is a choice if only as it allows her to live her life somewhat in solitude in her silence and anger. Although unable to break through to her on the speaking side of the equation, he is able to break through on a more humanistic level as they end up falling for each other eventually embark on a relationship. The question then becomes if there is the possibility of a long term future for them, especially in being able to bridge their many divides - not only the divide between the world of the hearing and the deaf - and in Sarah never having had a sense of who she truly is as a complete human being and not just the deaf girl who may now see what Jim is doing as solely his latest "project".—Huggo

James is a new speech teacher at a school for the deaf. He falls for Sarah, a pupil who decided to stay on at the school rather than venture into the big bad world. She shuns him at first, refusing to read his lips and only using signs. Will her feelings change over time?—Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>

Somewhere in pastoral New England, an idealistic young teacher, James Leeds (William Hurt), is appointed to the faculty at a state school for the deaf. Given his three years in the Peace Corps and deep interest in his students' lives, in comes as not much of a surprise when he starts getting involved in the life of Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin). He first sees Sarah working as a janitor and yelling (via sign language) at a cook, and subsequently learns that Sarah is a bit of an outcast at the school. The teachers don't know what to do with her, but James tries to build a relationship with her anyway.

James slowly manages to crack Sarah's icy façade, and she finally accepts a dinner invitation. It becomes quickly clear that Sarah is highly resistant to speaking aloud, despite James' encouragement to do so. Although she claims that it's because she already uses sign language, James suspects a deeper reason.

James gets a chance to talk to Sarah's mother, Mrs. Norman (Piper Laurie) and learns that Sarah and her sister Ruth were once popular with their male classmates, but simply because these boys wanted only sex. Because of this impersonal treatment, Sarah now mistrusts any hearing man, and would rather not deal with anyone in general. James claims he isn't like the others, but Sarah doesn't trust him. Everything changes when James finds Sarah swimming naked in the school pool; he joins her in the pool and quickly begin a romantic relationship.

Soon they are living together, which causes the school dean to warn James that this relationship will ultimately fail. James disregards this advice and continues on with Sarah. Hurdles begin to arise for them, however. For example, James arranges for his students to perform a choreographed dance, which for some unknown reason makes Sarah angry. Sarah later reveals that this is due, in part, to her thinking that James despises her for not speaking.

Despite some emotional bonds, James' focus on getting Sarah to speak begins to annoy Sarah, and - again - she feels like he's looking down on her for not speaking. In short, between Sarah's angst and childhood traumas, and James's fundamental inability as a hearing person to appreciate the life of a deaf person, the couple reaches a breaking point in which Sarah finally speaks (her only spoken line in the film), basically saying, "Here! I'm finally speaking! Is that what you wanted?" (See the movie quotes for the actual quote).

Sarah goes to live with her mother and in the process rebuilds that long-estranged relationship, and finds a job as a manicurist in the meantime. James continues to pursue her but she rebuffs all his attempts. Finally, Sarah and James reunite in a pivotal scene in the school gym. We are left with the impression that they're going to try this relationship again, this time with new knowledge about the other that will help make it successful.