Breaking Barriers, Again and Again

Read Time:5 Minute, 27 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
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Genre: Documentary, Biography
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director(s): Shoshannah Stern
Where to Watch: opens July 11, 2025, at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago

RAVING REVIEW: MARLEE MATLIN: NOT ALONE ANYMORE is more than a tribute—it’s a reclamation. Directed by Shoshannah Stern, the film gives Matlin the space and the language to tell her story on her terms, finally. For a woman whose life has often been filtered through interpreters, interviews, and assumptions, this documentary presents something long overdue: full autonomy. This is her story, as she tells it.

From the outset, Stern’s approach is a pointed departure from the conventions of biographical documentaries. Gone are the narrator voice-overs and neatly summarized transitions. Instead, ASL takes center stage—not just as a means of communication, but as a deliberate stylistic and narrative device. This isn’t a gimmick or aesthetic flourish. It’s the backbone of the film’s soul. The story unfolds through conversation, not explanation. And that distinction matters.

Matlin, who burst onto the global stage with her Oscar-winning role in CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD at just 21, is shown here not as a symbol, but as a full person: complicated, brilliant, hurt, relentless. Her fame brought opportunity, but it also brought an immense burden. As the “first Deaf Oscar winner,” she was unfairly treated as a spokesperson for an entire community, often forced to field questions that positioned her identity as spectacle rather than strength.

The film doesn’t shy away from those pressures. Some of its most potent sequences come from Matlin reflecting on what it meant to constantly have to translate her existence, not just linguistically, but emotionally as well. From strained family dynamics to heartbreaking relationships and the invisibility that can accompany a pioneering role, her honesty stings in the best way. Watching Matlin recount her struggles with addiction, a high-profile and damaging romance, and decades of being overlooked by an industry she helped shift feels raw and unguarded.

But equally powerful are the victories, many of which were quietly revolutionary. Matlin pushed for closed captioning before it became a standard. She insisted on interpreting services long before it was common practice. She helped to usher in the first deaf president at Gallaudet University (the first school for the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing in the world) over 120 years after it first opened. She starred in series like THE WEST WING and was instrumental in elevating Deaf talent in films like CODA. The film doesn’t just explore these milestones—it lets Matlin live in them again with the benefit of perspective and agency.

Stern’s choice to conduct interviews exclusively in ASL, and to remove traditional formatting like off-camera questions and cutaway B-roll commentary gives the film a rare intimacy. Even when high-profile names like Henry Winkler or Aaron Sorkin appear, the documentary remains grounded in personal connection rather than fame. We’re not watching talking heads assess Matlin—we’re watching a community of voices engage with her legacy.

Another standout decision is the innovative captioning system. Rather than adhering to sterile, standardized formats, the film employs bold, unique, and artistically placed captions that indicate speakers and convey emotional tone. It’s a design choice that might seem minor on paper but becomes revolutionary in execution. It reflects how Deaf audiences experience and imagine the world. For hearing viewers, it provides a richer, more layered way to engage with dialogue, transforming what’s typically considered a basic accessibility tool into a living, expressive language.

That creativity, combined with Stern’s deeply empathetic lens, makes this one of the most emotionally resonant documentaries in recent memory. It doesn’t rely on manufactured drama or sentimentality. Its innovation is rooted in intention. The entire production is in sync with its subject: honest, complicated, deeply human, and quietly radical.

At its core, MARLEE MATLIN: NOT ALONE ANYMORE is a masterclass in how to tell a life story without translating it for the comfort of an outside audience. It’s respectful without being soft, celebratory without ignoring the scars. By letting Matlin speak in the language she thinks and dreams in—and surrounding her with collaborators who do the same—the film finally gives her the kind of representation she has long fought to see, not just for herself, but for everyone like her.

It’s hard not to wish that this kind of storytelling had come sooner. But maybe it couldn’t have. Perhaps it took all these years, all these battles, and this very specific partnership between Matlin and Stern to make a documentary that finally feels like Marlee’s—not a documentary about her, but from her.

For Deaf viewers, especially Deaf women, this film may very well be a revelation. For everyone else, it’s an overdue reminder that representation doesn’t begin with casting—it starts with authorship. And MARLEE MATLIN: NOT ALONE ANYMORE is authored with care, conviction, and a clarity of purpose that’s rare even among prestige docs. Authentic, powerful, and inventive—this is what a legacy told right looks like.

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[photo courtesy of KINO LORBER]

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