"speechless…"
Dana Woodman (Danica McKellar), an emotionally uptight overachiever, needs
one last subject to complete her graduate school psychology evaluation
project. But, instead of evaluating a fellow student, Dana feels she is
ready for the challenge of using a real patient, outside of school.
Her professor (Dan
Lauria), takes her to her word and assigns her to a challenge, indeed: a
patient named Jacob Tanner (Jay Michael Ferguson), who cannot speak at
all.
At first, Dana is
frustrated with this mute 21-year old… and the co-dependent relationship
he has with his overly nurturing mother (Dorothy Lyman). But as Dana works
with Jacob, she becomes fascinated with his charming ability to
communicate to her without words, and she becomes more and more convinced
that he could learn to speak.
Dana questions
Jacob's mother in order to understand the history of his inability to
speak, but to no avail. In a desperate attempt to protect her son from the
outside world, she shuts Dana out completely.
This does not waver
Dana's almost unexplainably strong will to understand Jacob…but she does
get more than she bargained for when this speechless patient speaks to her
own heart in a way she never knew possible.
"speechless…"
Written by Danica McKellar