For a non-sci-fi, non-fantasy, and non-any-other-major-genre film, this is a truly bizarre piece of work. The main character, a model, is also a colostomy patient. Her insensitive boyfriend wants her to become the "spokesmodel" for colostomy bags. She meets, and is attracted to, her doctor's homosexual lover, and they enter an affair (of a sort). He is portrayed as gay (not bisexual, not curious, not even a top), and they don't really even have sex.....you can see that this film sounds silly. It looks silly too, though all involved clearly intended to make a serious movie. I guess they deserve a few points for an honest attempt, but this would only have a chance to become better-known if it became a joke.
3 Reviews
An unknown gay movie
frc198329 March 2019
The film is daring, for a 1991 film. It is a rather unknown film, but director Sharon Greytak has an extensive filmography.
Maybe it's a subject that many gay people don't like. A gay man flirting with a woman is not an issue that represents the LGBT cause. However, the gay man is correct, with many doubts about his relationship with the woman.
Deserves to be better known
LuvSopr1 June 2024
Warning: Spoilers
I'd say I'm surprised Hearing Voices has such a low IMDB score, but I would guess one of the main reasons for the ranking is the subject matter. If anyone is reading this and is tempted to give a low ranking for the same reason, I'll just say that the character's sexuality is not that simple (he tells Erika that Carl, his boyfriend, is the only other person he's ever been with), and the film doesn't exactly treat the relationship as some kind of gay healing - the final scene has her dumping him as she feels they can never work because of his sexuality.
The main strength of Hearing Voices is Erika Nagy, who embodies a thoughtful portrayal of a woman struggling to not define herself by her disability in a world that constantly reminds her she exists for little more than her disability.
As the film goes along the focus shifts from just her to a quartet of lonely people, including Lee, his boyfriend Carl, and Erika's boyfriend Michael.
Michael is a narcissist, see-sawing between control and abuse of Erika and pity parties about how he has to live a life based on his looks. Tim Ahern does fine in the part, but I could have done with a little less of the character.
Michael Davenport as Carl gets the least time of the four characters but has an arc that I wish we'd seen more of. A doctor who struggles to not just see patients as cases, his relationship with the younger Lee is in the shadows of his late partner (given the era, it's an easy assumption that he passed of AIDS-related illnesses, but it's never clearly said).
While Nagy and Stephen Gatta have a good rapport and the sex scene between them is staged in a compelling and unique manner (Sharon Greytak does well with stylistic choices like these and the glimpses of Erika's modeling career, anxiety at a party, being inspected by doctors, etc.), the actual relationship between the two is not especially interesting, in large part because it doesn't have enough development. It just sort of starts and then ends, leaving you with the sense that they just wrapped it up because the film was wrapping up.
We do get a certain sense of closure with Erika as she decides to embrace her disability for her modeling career and cut ties with the men in her life, but I was left wanting a little more for her and especially for Lee and Carl. A movie that had slowly become about multiple people suddenly stops back where it began with just a singular focus.
Hearing Voices is still worth watching, if you can find it, for the glimmers of a lost time and place, some nice shots of New York, and performers who rarely got the dramatic chances they get here.
The main strength of Hearing Voices is Erika Nagy, who embodies a thoughtful portrayal of a woman struggling to not define herself by her disability in a world that constantly reminds her she exists for little more than her disability.
As the film goes along the focus shifts from just her to a quartet of lonely people, including Lee, his boyfriend Carl, and Erika's boyfriend Michael.
Michael is a narcissist, see-sawing between control and abuse of Erika and pity parties about how he has to live a life based on his looks. Tim Ahern does fine in the part, but I could have done with a little less of the character.
Michael Davenport as Carl gets the least time of the four characters but has an arc that I wish we'd seen more of. A doctor who struggles to not just see patients as cases, his relationship with the younger Lee is in the shadows of his late partner (given the era, it's an easy assumption that he passed of AIDS-related illnesses, but it's never clearly said).
While Nagy and Stephen Gatta have a good rapport and the sex scene between them is staged in a compelling and unique manner (Sharon Greytak does well with stylistic choices like these and the glimpses of Erika's modeling career, anxiety at a party, being inspected by doctors, etc.), the actual relationship between the two is not especially interesting, in large part because it doesn't have enough development. It just sort of starts and then ends, leaving you with the sense that they just wrapped it up because the film was wrapping up.
We do get a certain sense of closure with Erika as she decides to embrace her disability for her modeling career and cut ties with the men in her life, but I was left wanting a little more for her and especially for Lee and Carl. A movie that had slowly become about multiple people suddenly stops back where it began with just a singular focus.
Hearing Voices is still worth watching, if you can find it, for the glimmers of a lost time and place, some nice shots of New York, and performers who rarely got the dramatic chances they get here.
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