At First Sight

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Val Kilmer's hands move Mira Sorvino's supine body to tears. He is a blind masseuse, she a Manhattan architect, and celestial arcs of love link them like starry metaphors in pastoral poetry. The twist—whose visual and dramaturgic possibilities pass unexplored here—is that Kilmer's character becomes traumatically overwhelmed by the ocular world after gaining eyesight through an experimental surgery recommended by his lover. As romances go, this one's better than the current Hollywood crop, which isn't saying much at all. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed are kings.