‘The Way We Talk’ Review: The Gentle Power of Silence

Originally published in The Indiependent on 26 June 2025

(Source: One Cool Film Production)

Silence does not mean blankness. It is a powerful expression of autonomy for deaf people, and a strong filmmaking effect inviting the audience to enter their world. The weight of silence is beautifully captured in The Way We Talk, a Hong Kong movie about the deaf community’s identity struggle now available in the UK after its premiere at last year’s London Film Festival.

★★★★★

The Way We Talk, directed by Adam Wong, follows three young deaf people in Hong Kong. Alan, who uses a cochlear implant (CI) and has studied abroad, can speak, sign, and lipread proficiently. His mum also allows him to communicate however he wants. Wolf, Alan’s childhood friend whose family is deaf, is passionately devoted to sign language and resists other forms of communication. Sophie, also a CI user, is a clever girl pursuing her career as an actuary. She speaks fluently, but she cannot sign at all.

The film effectively presents the diversity of the deaf community through the three characters. Their levels of deafness and parenting environments contribute to the various identity struggles they experience. For instance, Sophie’s traditionally-minded mum believes that learning sign language would harm her ability to speak and assimilate into ‘normal’ society. Therefore, she studies in mainstream schools and is banned from signing at home. While it allows her to be academically outstanding, she cannot communicate as effortlessly as the hearing—nor can she cannot sign or chat with other deaf people, leaving her with an awkward in-betweenness which Alan and Wolf do not experience. The storytelling is so strong that with just a few childhood and family scenes, the film concisely conveys the intersectionality between disability culture, sense of identity and social factors like education.  

The sound effects and smart use of subtitles further strengthen the storytelling. In the movie, the conversation and background noise sometimes sound crackling and blurry. It lets the audience understand that even deaf people who wear hearing aids or use a CI, an electronic device inserted in the ear to stimulate the auditory nerve directly, cannot hear clearly. The amplified volume could even make them ill. 

A true moment of beauty in the film is Alan and Wolf teaching Sophie sign language for the first time. It is a completely silent scene as Wolf signs in front of Sophie. He does not explain what each sign means, just letting Sophie feel and guess the gestures. There are no subtitles, the audience in the same position as  Sophie. “Welcome to the world of sign language,” Wolf says. For ‘world’, he clenches one fist and wraps the other hand around it, representing an Earth.

This scene, along with other silent scenes in the film, is more than a fun guessing game. In British Sign Language, ‘world’ is also the same as ‘earth’. However, it is made by forming both hands into the shape of a ball and outlining a circular motion, stressing the space rather than the earth as a planet. Sign language differs across the world and correlates with the local grammar and language system of that country. Therefore, the silent scenes of sign language are a cultural exchange between deaf and hearing Cantonese speakers, as well as the Hong Kong people and foreign audiences. 

The Way We Talk effectively presents the injustice faced by the deaf community in Hong Kong. For instance, while sign languages have been more recognised by the West, many schools in Hong Kong refuse to provide interpreters for deaf pupils. The traditional thought that sign language diminishes oral speaking and that deaf people must speak to assimilate still lingers, suppressing their freedom to express themselves.

However, the film does not take an activist approach and focus on the inequality. It instead places sign language as the subject, inviting the audience to appreciate its beauty. The actors sign like they’re dancing, conveying their emotions through smooth hand movements and facial expressions. While some may expect dramatic scenes of deaf people fighting back, this film encourages the audience to recognise the elegance of deaf culture and enter the world of sign language users. It is a gentle film about empathy and understanding, about talking in the way you like; the kindest yet most powerful way to respond to suppression.

“If I can choose, I choose tranquility with my hands to freely express,” Sophie says. This yearning for freedom not just applies to Sophie and her peers. This movie is for everyone who feels out of place and not fitting in. 

The Verdict

With its creative use of sound effects and gentle storytelling, The Way We Talk opens up new possibilities for films about disability. It shows how an empathetic approach allows audiences to feel with and appreciate documentary subjects rather than staring at them from afar, breaking  the socially constructed boundary between disabled and abled, ‘normal’ and’ abnormal’.