CODA (2021)
“I really love to sing.” – Ruby.
CODA (2021)
Directed by: Sian Heder
Written by: Sian Heder (screenplay)
Starring: Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur
The most wholesome film of 2021…and probably my 3rd favourite film of the year. If the Academy want to reward a feel-good story, they’ll pick this for Best Picture.
CODA focuses on Ruby (Jones), a teenage girl who is the only hearing person in her deaf family. She struggles to balance her obligations as the interpreter for her family’s fishing business with her passion for singing – a passion her family cannot connect with.
While CODA explores the importance of loyalty, integrity, and independence, the film is all about the human need for connection. The family’s inability to communicate with the community leaves both them and Ruby feeling ostracised. They’re disconnected from the town, and the film does a fantastic job emphasising the colossal impact being deaf can have on someone’s professional and personal life. Moreover, even though Ruby can hear, her association with her family means she is viewed as nothing more than their translator at the docks, and nothing more than an outsider at school.
By investigating how a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) is impacted by their association with deafness, the film humanises both people with disabilities AND those in their orbit. Ruby’s ability to hear alienates her from the rest of her family, as we see them impose their lifestyle on her. For instance, at dinner she is told that she can’t listen to music, yet her brother is allowed to keep scrolling through Tinder. When she asks about this double standard, her mum simply answers, “Because Tinder is something we can do together as a family.” Ruby has grown up facilitating their lives as a translator, but is also forced to adhere to their restrictive lifestyles. This leaves her caught between two worlds – feeling like an outcast at school, but also within her own family.
This imposter syndrome crescendos when Ruby pursues her love for singing, but her family is unable to reciprocate her excitement. Responsibility, passion and purpose all battle for supremacy as she has to ‘come-of-age’ in a very short period of time.
The other fantastic element of this film is how they humanise Ruby’s family. This probably seems like a stupid thing to point out, but people with disabilities are often depicted as hopeless souls who need rescuing in movies, so it was refreshing to see the family written with more depth and nuance than the hearing characters. They were charismatic, normal people, and this representation helped highlight the hypocrisy of the townspeople who considered them ‘freaks’.
The only problem I had was the ‘Hollywood ending’, but otherwise this is a must-watch. Balancing levity, sadness and some bangin’ songs (Emilia Jones was brilliant), this movie will live on for a long time.
Rating: 8.5/10