But it also has passages that are mawkishly sentimental or clumsily contrived. It's as if director and co-writer Caroline Link took off without quite knowing where she really wanted to go.
Lightning is silent, like the moon.
Unlike the film as a whole, the opening provides a succinct demonstration of the gap that separates the parents' quiet universe from the thunder of the hearing world. Lara, who serves as the messenger between two cultures, regularly shuttles back and forth without ever really feeling like a native of either. So it is that the parents unwittingly become dependent upon their child, who must overcome not only her own guilt but their dependency in her struggle to become her own person. Lara quickly realizes that music is her native tongue, a language that allows her to express herself more clearly and wholly than words, whether spoken or signed. The discovery draws her closer to Clarissa, who as her father's obvious favorite was Martin's nemesis since childhood.