"The American President," rated PG13, with a running time of about two hours and starring Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen and Michael J. Fox, is an intelligent, witty, compassionate and very interesting portrayal of the struggles and responsibilities of the most powerful and public leader in the United States. Michael Douglas plays the role of a brilliant and vibrant widowed chief executive and Annette Bening as a high powered environmental lobbyist who becomes temporarily overwhelmed when being socially pursued by the president. Their road toward intimacy has many hilarious bumps with the whole movie standing tall with both moral and political integrity.

From the visually impaired point of view, this movie is a total winner. There were only a few main characters, all of whom had very distinct voices which were easy to follow. The scene changes were reasonable and there were no confusing jumps. There was almost no-stop dialogue with no long silent moments at all. Often the dialogue was quick and witty though and you could easily miss some great lines if you didn't stay focused.

For those of you who have sight and read this column, you can use this movie as a standard. It's very rare that I give a movie a perfect rating, but this one gets a 10. If you have any friends or relatives who are blind or visually impaired, give them a call and surprise them with an afternoon out to the movies. You won't be sorry.