CODA the Most Moving Film of the Summer

 

CODA (2021)

Directed by Sian Heder

Pathé, Vendôme, Apple + TV, 111 minutes, PG-13 (language, adult situations)

In English and sign language

★★★★

   

 

At last! A feel-good summer movie that’s not a cartoon, action film, or comedy for those with the IQ of a seven-year-old. CODA is predictable and tries to make you reach for the tissue box, but its heart is in the right place. It has already won four awards at Sundance and is sure to carry off a few more prizes. That’s because it is well-acted throughout and Emilia Jones, its main character, is so good she turns heads.

 

If you wonder about the French production companies and why it features an Irish actor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), a Mexican principal (Eugenio Derbez), and a Canadian (Amy Forsyth), it’s because the film is a remake of La Famille Bélier, a 2014 French release. Two writers from that film cowrote the latest production, which had a Covid-related online release that did so well in Europe that Apple TV + purchased North American distribution rights. It’s about Ruby Rossi (Jones), a reclusive 17-year-old high school senior who loves to sing, but has deaf parents. CODA–all uppercase–stands for Child Of Deaf Adults. Being a CODA is tougher than you might imagine. My first professional job out of college was as a juvenile probation officer. One of my most challenging clients was a CODA who was the ears and voice for his parents. He acted out in part because of the frustration involved in not being allowed to have a conventional childhood.

 

CODA is set in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Frank (Troy Kotsur) and Jackie Rossi (Marlee Matlin), their deaf son Leo (Daniel Durant), and his hearing younger sister Ruby are a fishing family. Ruby’s daily routine involves waking up at 3 am, tossing on her clothes, waking the rest of her family, and making her way to the pre-dawn pier with her dad and brother to cruise miles out to sea. On good days she returns home in time to get ready for school; on the bad ones, she pedals her bike like mad and hits the high school halls smelling of the catch. Needless to say, she’s not popular–more like the butt of jokes and mean-spirited ridicule. Her only real friend is Gertie (Forsyth), who is a bit slutty and thinks Leo is hot. Ruby’s life takes an unexpected turn when she impulsively signs up for Chorus when seeking a gut course to fill out her senior schedule. She’s petrified of her peers, but music teacher Bernardo Villalobos (Derbez) knows talent when he hears it. Derbez plays a stock character: cranky tough love teacher who tells Ruby and a talented peer, Miles (Walsh-Peelo) either to excel or stop wasting his time. It’s not that he doesn’t care about Ruby’s challenges, rather he thinks she can get a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee College of Music if she drives herself to the max. Ruby is like the kid I used to supervise; she hasn’t had the luxury of being a child or an adolescent.

 

Try going your own way when you are the ears for your entire family, and a close one at that. Frank and Ruby are nuts about each other, though they are not exactly versed in social etiquette, and Leo is salt of the earth. CODA also tackles the challenges of making a living from the sea in an age of overfishing, regulation, rip-off vendors, and fishing families forced to compete against each other. Try arguing with a vendor if you can’t hear. Leo can at least read lips, but he still can’t communicate with anyone who doesn’t know ASL (American Sign Language).  Can anything possibly go right for the Rossis? Will Ruby and Miles be able to pull off the duet Villalobos wants them to rehearse? Will Gloucester’s blue-collar seafaring community ever embrace the Rossi family? Does Ruby get her shot at Berklee?

 

Curmudgeons have criticized CODA for being paint-by-the-numbers. Okay, it is! It’s also deeply satisfying, sharply written, funny, and doles out melodrama in small enough doses that we don’t gag. As most know, Marlee Matlin is indeed deaf. She threatened to quit the production unless other deaf actors were cast, which led to Kotsur and Durant coming aboard. All three are wonderful, with Kotsur and Matlin very endearing together. The film, though, is stolen by Emilia Jones, hitherto known for the Netflix series Locke and Key. Not for long. She not only acts, she puts in the work to shine. She spent eight months while on the TV series taking voice lessons and learning ASL and she’s bloody good at both.

 

Yeah, yeah, the film’s a remake with a change of location and echoes of other CODA movies, plus doses of Fame and Once goes to high school. It’s also a terrific ensemble film and so inspiring you can reach for that tissue box without shame.

 

Rob Weir