Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9229 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 128 minutes

From Amazon.com
The tagline states, "Only love can bring you to your senses." Well, your senses have to be pretty dulled to love At First Sight. On paper the story--based on the writings of medical writer extraordinaire Oliver Sacks (Awakenings)--is intriguing: a blind man regains sight after surgery yet can never connect with what he sees, including a lovely new girlfriend. Indeed, maybe blind was better. From such interesting stuff (and a talented cast) comes a tepid love story and an unconvincing drama.

Val Kilmer plays Virgil, a serene resort worker who plays hockey in the dark and is the best masseur this side of the Catskills. Onto his table comes Amy, a bone-weary NYC architect (Mira Sorvino) who cries the first time Virgil does his magic. Instead of a voyage into the world of blindness, Amy's first instinct is to take Virgil to an eye doctor who can restore sight (Bruce Davison). Virgil receives sight, crumbling the trust between him and Amy. The clichés start building up and by the time Amy is wooed by her ex-husband (Steven Weber), her boss no less, one's patience wears thin.

The medical curiosities of the story--Virgil can see an item but can't grasp what it is until he touches it--do not translate well on screen. The film's liveliest character is Nathan Lane as a teacher of the blind. A scene with Virgil that gets to the heart of his ailment is so filled with spontaneity, one wonders if it was scripted or simply Lane's own extemporaneous dialogue. After an admirable start as a director (Guilty by Suspicion), Oscar-winning producer Irwin Winkler has not been able to put cinematic highs or believable angst into his films (The Net, Night in the City). At First Sight may look good, but it is blind where it counts. --Doug Thomas

On the DVD
cc4-page "behind-the-scenes" booklet
Theatrical trailer

Synopsis
New York architect Amy Benic (Mira Sorvino) meets blind masseur Virgil Adamson (Val Kilmer) and falls in love. As she learns his lifelong blindness may be curable through experimental surgery, she convinces him to undergo the operation. Virgil then learns vision may not quite be what he expected. At First Sight is directed by Irwin Winkler and also stars Bruce Davison, Nathan Lane, and Kelly McGillis. At First Sight is a romance adapted by writer Steve Levitt based upon the story To See and Not See from noted writer Dr. Oliver Sacks' collection, An Anthropologist on Mars. Dr. Sacks' work is also the basis for the Penny Marshall film Awakenings, starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams and the opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Michael Morris with music by Michael Nyman. In his original story, Dr. Sacks tells of receiving a call in October 1991 from a retired minister in the Midwest. His daughter was about to marry a fifty-year old man, Virgil, who had been blind since early childhood. He had thick cataracts and been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease which slowly eats away the retinas. As he could still make the distinction between light and dark, it was found he was misdiagnosed and simple cataract extraction could possibly restore his sight. While surgery was a success, Virgil, like his cinematic counterpart, found he would have to learn to use his vision much like an infant would, even though he was adept at relating to the world through touch. In his A New Theory of Vision, written in 1709, George Berkeley concluded there was no necessary connection between a tactile world and a sight world; a connection between them could be established only on the basis of experience. This same story was also adapted into the play Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Quite enjoyable. I truly enjoyed this movie.........
Based on a true story of a blind man who regains eyesight and is able to see. This movie is beautifully written. Although I have not read the book or original material related to the movie, I would definitely say that it is an enjoyable couple's movie, a movie about the bonds of love despite all the "handicap stigmas," and how a couple finds a deeper meaning to their lives.

Good movie, worth the viewing..........

Diego R. Rodriguez
Chicago, Illinois

Val Kilmer is Wonderful
There were parts of this movie that will make you wish that you were blind(and deaf) these are just all the parts that Mira Solvino was around for, I'm sorry she just can't do romanitic commidies.

Kilmer was great playing a blind man who is given his sight and has no idea how to react to it. His performance at least is something everyone should see.

Kilmer is amazing
Kilmer gives a caring and powerful performance as a masagge therapist whose blind and encounters the lovely Mira Sorvino and they fall romantically in love, its just great, then Kilmer goes and gets his blind eyes fixed and then he can see but hes not adapted to the world with its shapes and sizes and then he goes blind again at the end. you cant take your eyes of Kilmer, you really care for his character and what hes going threw and Nathan Lane is great as the blind school teacher.