Where I Watched It: Starz

English Audio Description?: No

Studios and streaming services love to turn their backs on the blind community, and here’s another example, as About My Father’s streaming run went to Starz. So, no audio description. I want to be fair to the filmmakers, but I also want them to start realizing that they are actively participating in a system that consistently sends the message to the millions of Americans who are low vision or blind, that we don’t matter.

About My Father is a comedy that comes as close as you could come to getting out of my “Unwatchable” hell that most non-audio described films land in. It’s not me being petty, it’s that there are things in this film that don’t work, or would work better if there was audio description.

In the case of About My Father, which features an oddly stacked cast for Sebastian Maniscalco’s starring debut, which roped in Robert DeNiro, Leslie Bibb, and Kim Cattrall to name just a few. DeNiro is a nice touch, as he rarely is bad in anything, though he was in Rocky and Bullwinkle, so I have to say “rarely”. To a legend. Sorry.

But, this film is a fish out of water class battle, where Sebastian is playing a man who is looking to Mary the love of his life (Leslie Bibb), who happens to come from a very wealthy family. he does not. His father came over from Italy, and he was pretty dirt poor over there. But, he has made himself a life here in America, and has enjoyed having his son living nearby. The jokes in this film are mostly set around these Beverly Hillbilly types being taken aback by opulence and that Lifesstyles Of The Rich and Famous attitude that comes from Bibb’s side of the family. There’s a scene where DeNiro is bothered because a menu doesn’t list prices, among many of the other details he points out along the movie. Sebastian is also out of his element, with one scene having a joke that centers on full frontal nudity. Without audio description, that joke doesn’t land, if it ever does.

But, when you are spending your time in a mansion that supposedly has all these incredibly posh attributes, or as Deniro’s father notes “every piece of furniture has to have a history”, referring to all the antiques around him, it doesn’t help that we aren’t privy to this show of wealth, as that is what the film is largely about. The poor vs the rich.

While a lot of the film is dialogue, and they don’t sit and ponder their thoughts, there are sight gags, and not being allowed to know what this looks like visually changes how we interpret the experience they are having. Audio description would close that gap, but again, Hollywood isn’t really interested in closing that gap. if they throw us a few titles every year with accessibility, that should be enough, right? i feel like if sighted people had their movies chosen for them, perhaps they would understand the frustration. Not to mention, we do watch films with sighted people, and they know we need audio description. When you don’t provide it, they either feel the need to try and fill that gap, ruining the experience for themselves, or others in the theatre, or they feel bad for having suggested a title without audio description. It’s not just that studios and streamers are taking advantage frequently of the blind and visually impaired communities, but those that also choose to spend their lives with us, who might not have any disabilities at all, and are just empathetic enough to notice when accessibility that could have been provided for some reason is not.

So, while I’m sure there’s a good movie here somewhere, i didn’t get near to the full experience, so once again I’m going with the same grade I give to almost every non-audio described film now.

Final Grade: Unwatchable