Hear the Silence

Hear the Silence
Written byTimothy Prager
Directed byTim Fywell
StarringHugh Bonneville
Juliet Stevenson
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Production
CinematographyIvan Strasburg
Running time90 minutes
Budget£1 million
Original release
NetworkFive
Release15 December 2003 (2003-12-15)

Hear the Silence is a 2003 semi-fictional TV drama based around the discredited idea of a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism. By then, a contentious issue, the supposed connection originated in a paper by Andrew Wakefield published in 1998. The film debuted on 15 December 2003 at 9 pm on the British network Five. Produced on a budget of £1 million, it stars Hugh Bonneville as Wakefield and Juliet Stevenson as Christine Shields, a fictional mother who discovers the possible MMR-autism link when her son is diagnosed as autistic.