Coda

Pro: Great performances from actors with heart and perspective revive an otherwise play-by-play plot.

Con: An Oscar-winning actress is sidelined to rehash Mr. Holland’s Opus and High School Music subplots.

I love to feel like I discovered a great movie. A random choice that I had no knowledge of. Since there is so much content, so much to watch, I usually have to watch the trailer, see a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, and check out a brief tagline before I commit to watching a movie. That is time I could be spending watching a better movie, why risk it? Coda tells me that I should try the random more often. This time the choice was made for me. I had reached the end of available Ted Lasso episodes, and Apple set Coda up as that Next-Up movie, the one that starts in ten seconds and plays automatically if you are too lazy to click back or away. I was…and could not be happier for it. I watched it without my usual preliminary scrutiny and enjoyed it more. To be fair, I looked up reviews afterward and they all seem to agree: Coda is a fantastically sweet movie. I expect it will get more attention since it just came out on Friday, but I will feel like a hipster for “discovering” it for now.

A daughter with deaf parents discovers a love of singing. Music becomes her escape and passion. As her choir teacher observes, it is “interesting” that she expresses herself with music since she has a deaf family. Her fishermen's parents and brother are deaf. Ruby acts as their deckhand, interpreter, and singular link to the rest of the world. Her crass, quirky, and loving family isolate themselves in their work. Her father Frank is embarrassed to speak or try to communicate at all without Ruby, even when his livelihood is threatened by unfair regulations. Her mother feels judged by the community. And her brother feels useless and overlooked by how much the parents favor and rely on Ruby. This family dynamic is perfect. They feel so real and embarrassing and complex. And most of all, the family elevates the film above its otherwise predictable premise: The shy girl follows a crush to tryouts, finds her hidden talent, and auditions for the school that could take her away.

The other performances are strong. I greatly enjoyed seeing Ferdia Walsh-Peelo—what a name—again after Sing Street (a greatly underrated film, overshadowed by the director’s earlier film, Once). He plays the boy Ruby follows doe-eyed-blind into the choir class. And obviously, she has to sing a solo and be more courageous. Her choir teacher notices her talent and fosters it and pairs them together for the concert. They practice and flirt. The boy makes a mistake and has to win her trust back. They perform together and they are cute. WHATEVER. That is the film outside of the family drama. It is sweet but predictable. This is why I am so impressed with how much Ruby’s family drama got me invested.

What could have easily been pandering or patronizing to the deaf characters is executed to perfection. It never feels like a cheesy melodrama. The actors behind the performances—who are deaf—bring honesty and perspective. Troy Kotsur shines as her father. The chemistry he has with Emilia Jones is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. The classic dichotomy of a father not understanding his daughter’s choices and direction is made anew. It is so sad to see how much he relies on Ruby, not just because of his deafness but because he is ashamed and afraid. He is reluctant to haggle prices or speak his mind. Ruby pushes him to speak up, which he does with her interpreting. ONLY once does he speak vocally. The film eludes and foreshadows this so I was waiting. And it comes at the perfect time!

One drawback. Oscar-winner Marlee Beth Matlin from Children of a Lesser God plays Ruby’s mother and should have been featured more. The film has to balance the three experiences and different reactions to Ruby’s breakaway—her brother, father, mother—and I wish her mother’s role was explored more. It could have spent less time with the boyfriend and choir teacher and the gossip at school—those things had been done before so we didn’t need to see every predictable beat played out. There are hints of a deeper relationship between mother and daughter that is gone unexplored. And the mother’s progress into the community is ignored until the last montage of “look at them now” scenes. Earlier she expresses how much the other families in the fishing community judge them, especially the wives. There are scenes of her being on the fringes of that group of friends…struggling to step in and risk her shame without Ruby there. And then…suddenly…they are friends. She is in the group! WHAT? This is kind of a spoiler. But I won’t count it because it was too easy. Again, the time committed to the teacher and boyfriend could have been shared with this subplot. I wanted to see Jackie try, fail, try, and enforce herself. We already have Mr. Holland’s Opus so we don’t need the teacher trying to succeed himself and then learning that he succeeds when his students succeed. We already have High School Musical, so we don’t need the cute singing duo to go through high school drama. Jackie’s story could have been better. I have seen very few stories about a deaf mother learning to take a stand and find her place in a tough, tight-knit community, without the aid of her hearing daughter. That is wasted potential.

I understand why Apple suggested it for me after Ted Lasso. Both shows just make you feel good. There is drama but it is just light enough for you to care but not stress. The film reminded me of Billy Elliot—the diamond in the rough blue-collar family shines and eventually, the family helps the child do so

SPOILER SPOILER

I just have to rant about my favorite scenes with Frank and Ruby. As I said their miscommunication between generations, dreams, and needs is what drives the movie home. The film sets up the final school choir performance as the typical, happy moment of Ruby coming out of her shell…but it is marred by the fact that her parents can’t hear and therefore struggle to stay connected during the performance. I cried three times during this film, and the first was when the sound went out during her duet to show how her parents were more aware of the crowd’s reaction than they were of their daughter’s talent. Frank feels this disconnect and, later when they are alone in the backyard, asks Ruby to sing. He reads her lips and feels her throat as she sings…finally realizing how good she is and what it means to her. When he closed his eyes, I cried for the second time. I was too happy to cry during the audition, but I couldn’t help it during the final farewell…when Frank finally risks sounding strange and speaks vocally to encourage Ruby, “GO.”