AT FIRST SIGHT (MGM) Starring: Val Kilmer, Mira Sorvino, Kelly McGillis, Steven Weber, Nathan Lane, Bruce Davison. Screenplay: Steve Levitt, based on "To See or Not See" by Oliver Sacks. Producers: Irwin Winkler and Rob Cowan. Director: Irwin Winkler. MPAA Rating: R (sexual situations, nudity, adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 127 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It's a shame when a true story gets in the way of a good story. Take AT FIRST SIGHT, for instance, an adaptation based on a case study by Oliver Sacks (AWAKENINGS). It begins in New York City, where workaholic architect Amy Benic (Mira Sorvino) is preparing for a long-overdue vacation. Her destination is an upstate mountain spa, where the amenities include the services of gifted masseur Virgil Adamson (Val Kilmer). Unexpectedly, the two begin developing a romantic relationship, a coupling complicated by the fact that Virgil has been blind since he was a young boy, and by the suspicions of Virgil's protective older sister Jennie (Kelly McGillis).
The first half-hour of AT FIRST SIGHT focuses largely on the tentative early steps of Amy and Virgil's romance, and it's wonderfully effective stuff. Amy's first massage appointment with Virgil is intimate, sexy and emotionally charged; their meeting on a remote skating pond is loaded with simple charm. Both lead actors are about as appealing as we've ever seen them -- Sorvino aglow with re-awakened sensation, Kilmer dropping his recent posing to connect with a fellow actor. At first glance, AT FIRST SIGHT is a throwback love story, short on world-changing ramifications but long on gorgeous photography and superb chemistry between Sorvino and Kilmer.
Then the facts step in to blow the whole thing to shreds. When Amy researches Virgil's condition, she discovers that an experimental surgery could offer hope. Virgil eventually agrees to the surgery, and emerges with the ability to see for the first time in over 25 years. Director Irwin Winkler does a fine job of conveying Virgil's initial disorientation, an assault of stimuli on a man with no real visual vocabulary. And for a while, the medical details of Virgil's recovery -- such as his challenges with perspective and depth perception -- are undeniably intriguing.
The long-term problem with AT FIRST SIGHT -- and it becomes quite long indeed -- is that the story becomes less about the relationship between Virgil and Amy than it does about the relationship between Virgil and his sight. We watch Virgil struggle with being dependent once again after living a hard-fought life of independence; we watch him struggle with his feelings of abandonment after receiving a message from the father who deserted him (Ken Howard). Amy, meanwhile, is frustrated by her inability to help Virgil enough, and turns to her ex-husband and business partner Duncan (Steven Weber). The simple appeal of the relationship between Amy and Virgil turns overwrought, the chemistry fading with each moment of focus on the disease of the week.
It becomes even more frustrating when it becomes evident that AT FIRST SIGHT is going to take exactly the same dramatic arc AWAKENINGS took. That's when you start to feel every minute of the two hour plus running time, waiting for the inevitable revelations and confrontations which in some cases are twenty or thirty minutes away. AT FIRST SIGHT closes with a caption informing us how Virgil and Amy fared in real life after the events of the film, which only served to remind me that "based on a true story" was no advantage in this case. The film had too much going for it as a love story to become a medical drama. When fact proves duller than fiction, it's time for a little artistic license.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 blurry visions: 5.
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