After 19 years of marriage, the high-living wife of a wealthy businessman is shocked to find out her husband has been arrested for insider trading (she's also surprised much later to learn he's been cheating on her). Sentenced for her complicity (which she appears to be innocent of), she must complete 100 hours of community service, filling that time by reading to the blind. Her audience is an antagonistic writer-turned-teacher who lost his sight and his wife in a car crash; he infuriates her immediately by calling her on her own self-deception, but eventually they form a romantic bond. Tepid drama from director Michael Mailer, who is unable to get a sincere performance from Alec Baldwin as the professor; at this point, Baldwin is so ubiquitous on television as a self-absorbed smart-ass and raconteur that disappearing into a character who has experienced tragedy is alien to him. It doesn't help that the script, by John Buffalo Mailer from Diane Fisher's story, fails to separate Baldwin's character from the actor's real-life persona, and when he gives Demi Moore a dressing down on their first meeting, he acts like he's doing a parody of Hannibal Lecter. As for Moore, she has lost her instincts as an actress (and her sense of humor); when she gets angry, it isn't angry enough--her face is a mask, and barely recognizable from the red-hot talent she once was. The film is full of tired give-and-take, also a facetious class conversation about gay sex in literature (followed by Baldwin bellowing, "Cut the sh*t!"), and Dylan McDermott taking down underlings and prisoners alike. It feels about as real as cartoon. *1/2 from ****
Review of Blind
