I agree. The unspoken ASL should have been subtitled. It seemed very unnatural for William Hurt to repeat her lines just for himself. That would only make sense if there were other hearing people in the conversation who didn't know ASL and he was acting as the interpreter. Even more irritating was how he kept changing perspective. If she signed "I want you to sit," sometimes he'd say it back verbatim, like an interpreter, other times he'd change it to, "You want me to sit." That was done inconsistently and sometimes it got confusing to me.
"Switched at Birth" handles it in a way that seems realistic. When only deaf characters are signing, it's all subtitled. Some of the actors mouth the words or whisper as they sign, others do not. This seems to be a personal choice based on how the actor talks in real life. In scenes with deaf and hearing characters, the deaf characters' lines are signed and subtitled, while hearing characters who know ASL usually speak while signing, whether or not there is a hearing person in the scene who doesn't know ASL and would need interpretation, and this seems to be the custom, unless the signing characters, deaf or hearing, are trying to communicate secretively in front of someone who doesn't know ASL. And the there's Daphne who is only hard of hearing and can speak. She signs around anyone who knows ASL, deaf or hearing, but speaks without signing with people who don't know ASL, but only needs to be subtitled when she's with another deaf character and only signs without speaking.
Lots of permutations, but they're consistent and they put more thought into it than the makers of this film.
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