Ellen Gray: Film about deaf parents inspiring

HEAR AND NOW. 8 tonight, HBO.

IF I COULD say one thing to documentary filmmakers everywhere, it would be this: If you're going to make a film - not just a home movie - about your family, please make sure they're worth introducing to strangers.

Fortunately, that's not a problem for Irene Taylor Brodsky, whose documentary about her deaf parents and their decision, at 65, to get cochlear implants, won an Audience Award at last year's Sundance Film Festival.

It's hard to imagine an audience that wouldn't be charmed by Paul and Sally Taylor, whose willingness to pursue adventure makes "Hear and Now," which premieres tonight on HBO, an exhilarating and thought-provoking look at both their extraordinary lives and the procedure that may or may not change them forever.

Though implants remain a controversial subject in the deaf community, it's Brodsky, who's hearing, who seems most wary, admitting up front that she was "unnerved" by their decision.

"Mom and Dad are just really good at being deaf people. So why risk failing at this point? Why hear now?"

Good questions, particularly because Brodskys' parents, who have never heard anything, are good at being deaf, at least as hearing people understand it.

Both educated in the oral-school tradition that taught young deaf children to speak and to read lips, they appear to move with relative ease in a world of sounds and people they can't hear.

Paul Taylor became an engineer and professor and helped develop the TTY device that gave the deaf access to telephones. An indefatigable communicator, he text-messages while driving (so keep an eye out for him if you're driving near Rochester, N.Y.).

Sally Taylor, who prefers to crank up the heavy metal in the car - she enjoys the vibrations, says her daughter - worked as a secretary and as a teacher and occasionally even used her lip-reading skills to help police and journalists with surveillance.

Together, they brought up three hearing children. And even produced some better-than-average home movies.

"My mom, Sally, has always been a chatterbox. She's probably the only deaf person ever to be named gossip editor of her high school newspaper," says Brodsky, whose parents, after attending the same boarding school for the deaf as children, went on to regular high schools in their hometowns.

But for all their achievements, the Taylors aren't ideal candidates for implants. They've never heard, and so never learned to process speech through hearing. Their age, too, is against them, since older brains don't adapt as well as young ones.

So Brodsky is amazed, and you might be, too, to see how easy it is for the pair to get approved for the surgery, which was largely covered by their insurance. Their auditory nerves intact, they were good to go.

It's touching to hear Brodsky's father describe what he hopes to get from his cochlear implant.

"It might give me more confidence and with more confidence, I could maybe become a more bold person and do things I would never dream of," he says at one point, revealing the soul of a shy overachiever.

There's nothing shy about Sally Taylor, but "I still want to try new things," she tells her daughter, "and hearing people talking about all those things that require hearing makes me want to do something about it."

That turns out to be easier said than done, but then Brodsky's story isn't so much about a medical miracle as it is about two people for whom sound has never really been a barrier. *

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