Starring: Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, Eugenio Derbez
Distributor: Apple TV+
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture, CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. The audience is immersed in the world of a deaf family, and that of the daughter who is the only one able to hear, speak and sing.
Oscar-winner for Best Picture, 2021. And, interestingly, a winner from a streaming service, Apple, rather than from cinema distribution.
CODA is an arresting title and needs explanation. It stands for children of deaf adults. Which means that the film takes us into the daily life and struggles of a deaf family – father, mother and son profoundly deaf, the daughter, by contrast, able to hear and speak. And, as the narrative progresses, more than able to sing.
The producer of this film also produced a French film, The Belier Family (2014), the story of a family on a farm, coping with farming life, but the daughter able to hear and speak, also able to sing. While the film is a remake, the main French storylines are incorporated into CODA, the location now the fishing town of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Director Sian Heder also adapted the Oscar-winning screenplay.
The hearing audience is invited into the family, to experience the hard-working fishing and processing, the struggle to make ends meet, the building of the family business, the son in his father’s footsteps, the daughter Ruby having to share in the family work before going to school. There are subtitles – but, it is worth avoiding the subtitles at times just to appreciate the signed communication, the experience of the signing world.
British actress Emilia Jones is believable as Ruby (and, it seems, spent six months learning American sign language for the film). She has friends at school and suffers slights from those not sympathetic to her family. She joins the choir, initially timid, but encouraged by the exceedingly eccentric choirmaster, played by Eugenio Debez. He sees and hears her talent and encourages her with private lessons, to build up her capacity for an audition and a singing scholarship.
Needless to say, there are many struggles within the family, regulations for the fishing industry, a supervisor arriving unaware, initially, that the men were deaf, not hearing the Coast Guard boat approaching to warn them off. There are court cases. However, there is also solidarity and the community gathering together to bypass the fishing agents and set up a co-op.
Ruby, of course, is torn between her love for her family and her sense of obligation to help them and the requirements of the demanding singing instructor. But, more and more, Ruby learns to stand her ground.
Every audience will be impressed by the deaf actors, Daniel Durant as the son, Oscar-winning Marlee Matlin for her 1986 performance in Children of a Lesser God here playing the wife. Most impressive perhaps is Troy Kotsur as the father, an interesting and challenging screen presence, and, deservedly, winning the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. (And the response at the Oscars ceremony and his signed speech, his tribute to family, memories of his career, the first male deaf actor to win an Oscar, were well worth seeing.)
In many ways, the plot is familiar. However, being invited into the world of the deaf and communication by signing is an important experience for hearing audiences. And this is reinforced in the sequence where Ruby performs, her family going int the auditorium, seeing rather than hearing, a sense of rhythm and vibration, the film’s soundtrack going silent.
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