'CODA' Review
PG-13: Strong sexual content and language, and drug use
Runtime: 1 Hr and 55 Minutes
Production Companies: Vendôme Pictures, Pathé Films
Distributor: Apple TV+
Director: Sian Heder
Writer: Sian Heder
Cast: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant, Marlee Matlin
Release Date: August 13, 2021
Select Theaters and Apple TV+
Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member of a deaf family. At 17, she works mornings before school to help her parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant) keep their Gloucester fishing business afloat. But in joining her high school’s choir club, Ruby finds herself drawn to both her duet partner (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) and her latent passion for singing. Her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) hears something special and encourages Ruby to consider music school and a future beyond fishing, leaving her torn between obligation to family and pursuit of her dream.
Oh yes, another Sundance 2021 movie I’m super late to review even though this was the first Sundance 2021 movie I watched. I love being late to the party. CODA was the opening film of this year’s virtual festival and while watching, I envisioned myself at the Eccles Theater clapping through tears at the cast and crew. This was the perfect movie to kick off the festival and it would’ve killed in a crowd. Thankfully, around the time the film swept up Jury Awards, Apple picked it up for a whopping $25 million for both a theatrical and streaming push!
CODA is a remake of a French film titled La Famille Bélier, which follows the same premise of the youngest daughter who can speak in a family of deaf members, acting as the family’s sole interpreter. She must take control of her life as she approaches her senior year of high school and pursues singing. The original film fell short because it lacked a deaf ensemble, but writer-director Sian Heder spun this tale with authenticity both on and off-screen. Deaf actors Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, and Oscar-winning icon Marlee Matlin depicted this family with a grounded and charming nature that makes you feel as if you’re one of them. As you ease into the lifestyle of the Rossi’s, a Massachusetts-based fisherman family, you’re whisked away by their loving dynamic. They have dinner together, work jobs together, the parents are hot and horny for one another, etc. They are a cool down-to-earth family and you adore them, for they have a sharp sense of humor and show genuine love towards one another that’ll make children of divorce jealous.
The film’s primary focus is Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the titular CODA (child of deaf adults), as she answers her family’s call as their sole interpreter while maintaining a high school life. During her senior year, she must decide if she wants to go to college while taking up an interest in singing in the school choir with an exuberant and no-nonsense teacher to help push her (Eugenio Derbez). As a result, a major conflict of interest stirs between Ruby and her family. English actress Emilia Jones delivers a spotlight performance, for she steers the ship with her range as a teenage girl coming to her own, having a brilliant singing voice, and being bilingual while delivering ASL dialogue with such conviction and emotion in her physicality. While the entire ensemble is committed, she’s the center star whose raw emotion moves you to tears.
Heder’s screenplay embraces all the cheesiness of coming-of-age tropes. It checks all of the boxes for a teenage coming-of-age drama where a kid wants to sing and pursue their dreams, even down to the new cliche of jumping into a ravine with their crush to feel a sense of freedom and joy. It drowns itself in cheese for broad appeal but what can I say, cheese is one of my favorite delicacies. CODA is one of those very rare cases where it overcomes its corny adversities with its earnest and irresistibly charming tone. The film applies an abundant amount of familiar beats to a narrative about inclusivity. Heder’s screenplay and direction put you in the passenger seat of the Rossi family to the extent where the sound mixing plays an intricate role in making you hear what they hear. Heder’s approach is as thoughtful and caring as Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal, which accomplished the same feat. There are ample moments that make you sympathize with the non-Ruby members of the family. The more time you spend with them, the more their human flaws come to the forefront where the parents (Frank and Jackie) want Ruby to stay because of financial insufficiencies to hire an interpreter. It’s a genuine and engaging conflict for all parties that keeps you riveted the entire way through. The film exudes a light tone, though it has major “horny on main” energy to earn its PG-13 rating. But it has enough general audience appeal to make you stand up and cheer. CODA has all the makings of a crowd-pleaser and it hits those strides with heart and soul.
I already discussed the film’s corny demeanor in writing and beats, which is very rampant throughout and there are times that it’ll make you cringe. It genuinely takes a while for you to settle into the ride and while some of the most cheesy elements come to the foreground, you know some scenes could’ve been cut for time. It’s very well-paced and warrants its nearly two-hour run time, but the constant run-in of cliches and predictability boggles down some of the hard-earned emotion in the second half of the film. When the film gets to its final forty minutes, it strikes some golden tears, but it takes a lot to get there.
