CODA Review: A Playful, Fearless Movie About Deaf Family Life and Hard Decisions

[Ed. note: This review was first published in conjunction with CODA’s release at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It has been updated for the film’s theatrical release.]

Logline: As her senior year draws to a close, Ruby (Emilia Jones), the only hearing person in her deaf family, is torn between studying music in college and staying home to help – and perhaps save – her family business. fishing.

Longest line: As CODA, the daughter of deaf adults, Ruby juggles multiple roles at the young age of 18. She is a daughter, student, musician, fisherman and translator. In the mornings, he lends his father, Frank (Troy Kotsur) and his brother, Leo (Daniel Durant), an extra ear and a pair of hands as they fish off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She is a no-nonsense, animated character as she chatters around the table with her mother, Jackie (Marlee Matlin), or negotiates a fish sale, but at school, she can’t find her voice. After drawing the attention of the fire music teacher (Eugenio Derbez) during an audition for the choir, Ruby suddenly sees a path for her future: vocal training, Berklee College of Music, and a life beyond her family. It is reasonably scary.

In this microcosmic moment, everything Ruby knows begins to change. The crackdown on fishing boats puts the deafness of their father and brother under systematic scrutiny and threatens the local fishing industry in general. Her musical interests raise the question of what her family will do without her; everyone is perfectly functional to navigate society without vocal speech, but since july Relying on Ruby enough as a business link, no one can imagine her leaving home. The increasing intensity of his Berklee audition rehearsals and a burgeoning relationship with his choir partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peele) press the already intensely intimate stage.

That CODA Trying to do? Screenwriter and director Siân Heder (Orange is the new black) previously made the Netflix premiere in 2016 Tallulah, which followed a homeless teenage girl who inadvertently kidnaps a baby she believes needs to be rescued from an irresponsible mother. In CODA, he cuts back a piece of life and puts it in a pressure cooker. Replacing the ticking of the clock with a warmer tone, the family drama aims to portray the challenges of growing up culturally deaf and looking beyond disabilities to recognize that life’s difficulties, whether in a world full of sound or not , they are universal.

The quote that says it all: “I can not forever be that person. “

Does it get there? Authentic, sensitive and playful, CODA He is still human even when he pulls on the fibers of the heart. Heder leaves no anthropological distance between his camera and subjects, ensuring that the film never “other” to deaf characters, while still making sense of how much we depend on hearing for simple tasks. On the same note, there is a bravery in the lengthy dialogue scenes that unfold in ASL. As they talk about their problems, Frank, Jackie, Leo, and Ruby switch from low to high emotions, and the physicality of the performances is absorbing. The UK-born Jones apparently learned to sign, sing, and put an American accent for the role, and you’d never know – she holds the film together in an astonishing performance.

The circumstances put additional obstacles, often hilarious in hindsight, in front of Ruby and her family. When her father suffers from an itchy chest, his teenage daughter melts into a puddle of discomfort as she gestures to transmit a swollen genital rash to the doctor, and then translates a prescriptive abstinence recommendation to her mother. At the docks, Ruby and Leo argue over the price of their last catch. She knows from what she can hear that they are ripping him off, but her older brother is too proud to let her play hero.

And during a flirty rehearsal for their next duet, Ruby and Miles end up listening to Jackie and Frank … dynamic… bedroom activity. These are the trials and tribulations of teenage life, plus a twist of fate. (And if there’s one thing that doesn’t quite work, it’s Derbez’s over-the-top music teacher, whose comedic tone doesn’t match the vivid sentiment of family comedy.)

Heder finds his way into tension and the toughest questions. The family’s fear of the unknown is compounded by the possibilities on the horizon: Ruby has a fabulous voice, a skill her parents will never be able to comprehend as a viable future for their daughter. The anxiety comes just as Frank’s own career spirals out of control; He’s been fishing his whole life, but the fisherman’s extortion by the big fish on the pier turns his life into an Elia Kazan mini-drama. It’s not as bleak as On the sea tripBut Frank, Leo, Jackie, and eventually Ruby end up in a fight to take over their businesses and their livelihoods.

The stakes are high, and Heder combines it all into one conventional package that recalls everything from Ordinary people to Save the last dance Y To all the boys that I fell in love with. And while the drama is immediate and timely like those movies, it also seems to have a past and a present. That is: Yes, I would watch five seasons of the Paternity version of CODA.

What does that bring us? The film camera is uniquely equipped to zoom in and capture a sign language dispute, and the results in the hands of veterans like Kotsur and Matlin are fascinating. Writers rarely give two deaf actors the opportunity to do so. Heder gives them painful moments behind closed doors, tender scenes with Ruby, and moments where they are just dumb parents. Durant, best known for playing a deaf character in a reimagined revival of Wake up springHe is also completely alive and dimensional as Leo, a tough but sweet young man who is looking for his own career.

CODA offers a simple explanation of the importance of representation on screen: a century of films born from homogeneous perspectives has left so many stories untold and so many experiences unmapped. There is a simple thrill to seeing family dramas in the hands of actors who have often been relegated to supporting roles. Matlin is a hysterical and vibrant movie star who always plays the “deaf character”, but here, she is the mother, the wife and the businesswoman. It has a lot to offer to the screen and Heder touches it all.

The movie may turn out to be a little sweet for some tastes (yes I cried) but CODA it is also refined. In a dark moment, he was grateful for the celebration of family, friends, and life in the film.

The most memorable moment: Get ready for an extended sequence in which Ruby’s new friend Miles learns the ASL translation of “jerk off with a condom.”

When can we see it? CODA launches for streaming on Apple TV Plus on August 13.