Most importantly, Annie begins by teaching Helen the sign language for things like “dog,” “doll,” and “cake.” It’s important for Helen to memorize these signs, Annie explains to a skeptical James, so that in the future she can understand that these signs symbolize real things. To the Kellers’ surprise, Annie uses a more hands-on, aggressive approach than any of her predecessors, getting down on the floor to interact with Helen and at times punishing Helen harshly for misbehaving.
Although Annie has regained her sight, she often wears smoked glasses in order to protect her sensitive eyes from bright lights.Īnnie arrives at the Keller household, where she meets Helen. Her teacher at Perkins, Anagnos, taught her a great deal, and inspired her to become a teacher, too. There she underwent an operation to regain her sight. She believes that she broke her promise to her brother-to take care of him always-and vows never to break another promise to a child.Īnnie was virtually blind as a child, and she later attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind. When Annie was still young, James died, and Annie seems to blame herself for the tragedy. She and her beloved brother, James Sullivan, had a rough early life, and spent years in an almshouse. Annie Sullivan, the audience learns, grew up in Massachusetts. She reaches out to a young woman named Annie Sullivan.
Helen’s half-brother, James Keller (from Arthur’s first marriage) is cynical about Helen’s chances of ever learning how to read or write, and suggests that Arthur send Helen to an asylum.Įven though the Kellers have summoned dozens of doctors to teach Helen, Kate remains cautiously optimistic. Her family does very little to change her behavior-in fact, Kate sometimes rewards Helen with candy even when she’s been bad.
She can’t communicate with anyone, and so she spends her days horsing around, misbehaving, and sometimes attacking other children. Soon after, they learn that Helen has lost her ability to see or hear.įive years pass, and Helen is now a little girl. Captain Arthur Keller and his second wife, Kate Keller, summon a doctor to treat Helen for a fever. Elliott’s Sullivan is determined to instill in Helen-deaf and blind since a fever in infancy-the gift of language, and Eisenberg’s Helen-once she is done testing the strange new person in her life-is hungry to learn.In Alabama in the 1880s, the wealthy Keller family has just given birth to a baby girl, Helen Keller. This remains a story of strong-willed people who won’t let circumstances limit what they can achieve. Thankfully, most of the key scenes and many of the lines remain from William Gibson’s original television-to-stage-to-film version, and with them linger the story’s knife-edged humor and heart-tugging drama. Everyone seems more confident, agreeable and self-aware, and speaks in perfectly structured sentences that leave no nuance of characterization unarticulated. Elliott’s Sullivan is less prickly than Bancroft’s, as are Helen’s parents, played by David Strathairn and Kate Greenhouse. Eisenberg’s Helen is always dressed in crisp, clean clothes, unlike Duke’s, who-more realistically-was often covered in grime from her many falls and willful acts of demolition. Their work goes a long way toward legitimizing this project, which in many other ways has been too cleaned up by writers Monte Merrick and Marsha Norman (who gave the script a dialogue polish) and director Nadia Tass.Īs re-envisioned here, the tone is too soaked in sunlight and saturated with color, and too many rough edges have been knocked off the characters. Now, Helen is portrayed by 8-year-old Hallie Kate Eisenberg, who has been unmissable lately in those voice-altered Pepsi commercials and such movies as “Bicentennial Man” and “Beautiful.”Įisenberg gives a fierce, committed performance, as does Alison Elliott (“Wings of the Dove”) as Sullivan.
There’s also something to be said for trying to reach youngsters with new actors, from their own frame of reference, as a 1979 TV movie did by advancing Duke to the Sullivan role and bringing in Melissa Gilbert to play Helen.