🎬 Subtitles on for a Telugu film and my mother asked why I need them

I switched on subtitles for a Telugu film last Sunday and my mother, who does not follow every word of the language, asked why I needed them. Her point was that she understood the story from faces alone. I said that was easy for a family drama, and she challenged me to a bet. We watched forty minutes with the subtitles hidden. She guessed the villain, the secret marriage, and the exact scene where the mother in law would slap someone. I got two out of three right. She got all three. I had no argument left. Since then I have tried watching a film in a language I do not know, with the sound on and the subtitles off, just to see how far faces can take me. It works better than expected with the old black and white ones. A friend says it is cheating and that I should read along. I think it makes me notice the acting more. Have you tried it? Which film worked for you, and which one left you completely lost? I am looking for a hard one to test my mother with.

I tried a Korean film this way last year and understood about half. The face acting did most of it, but the courtroom scenes lost me completely. Maybe pick something with a lot of action, because gestures are easier to read than arguments. Was your mother's guess about the slap based on the music or the way the actress stood? That is the part I would want to know.

Your mother sounds sharper than most critics. My grandmother does the same and she has never read a subtitle in her life. For a hard test, try an old Malayalam film with a quiet plot and no loud villain, and see if she can follow the ending. I tried it with my aunt and she cried at the right moment without any help, which I still cannot explain.