CODA
“CODA clearly trusts its magnetic cast to honestly portray dimensionality within a Deaf family.”
Title: CODA (2021)
Director: Sian Heder 👩🏼🇺🇸
Writer: Screenplay by Sian Heder 👩🏼🇺🇸 based on the film La Famille Bélier (2014) by Victoria Bedos 👩🏼🇫🇷 and Stanislas Carré de Malberg 👨🏼🇫🇷
Reviewed by Aditya Joshi 👨🏽🇺🇸
Technical: 2.5/5
Most filmmakers, aspiring or otherwise, eventually tackle a coming-of-age story. More often than not, these stories follow the same tried and true beats: An outcast or aimless protagonist has a latent talent or desire. They’re spurred out of their childhood malaise by some combination of parental figures who just-don’t-understand, a supportive and quirky best friend, a love interest from a totally different set of circumstances, and an enigmatic mentor who pops in partway through the movie to spur the hero to action with a combination of tough love and empathy.
Sometimes these movies kick off a career, like Good Will Hunting (1997) did for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Other times, they allow major studio filmmakers to return to their roots with deeply personal stories like Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma (2018) or Kenneth Branagh’s 2022 Oscar frontrunner Belfast. In short, it takes a lot to differentiate a feature within this trope-filled genre.
On the surface, CODA—an acronym for “children of Deaf adults”—would seem to have the necessary twist on the formula. The film follows Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones, sure to be catapulted to fame on the back of this performance), the sole Hearing daughter in a Deaf family that lives in a fishing town on the Massachusetts coast. Ruby rises early to act as a translator for her fishermen father and brother before heading to school and dealing with the trials and tribulations of teenagedom. Like Sound of Metal (2020), the last major awards contender to include the Deaf community, this film focuses on a Hearing character who is immersed in Deaf culture. Though we’d love to see a Deaf story that doesn’t need to use this unnecessary “entry point,” the unique and underseen family dynamic portrayed on screen still feels fresh.
However, CODA surrounds its compelling characters in a tired, insanely predictable narrative. Ruby is a wallflower, laughed at by cardboard-cutout “mean girls” while crushing on a nondescript classmate. She also loves to sing, and is (ugh) pulled into a pursuit of her (ugh!) musical dreams by (ugh!!) an unorthodox, heavily invested teacher, who tells her that she too could attend (ugh!!!) a prestigious music program if she only gave it a real try. This overplayed plot is given extra zhuzh when her mentor Mr. V (Eugenio Derbez) ropes Ruby’s crush into singing a duet with her for the big choir concert. It’s so reminiscent of a Disney Channel Original movie I’m surprised Troy Bolton and Gabriela Montez haven’t considered a plagiarism suit.
I found myself longing for a deeper exploration of the family’s struggle to accept that Ruby might fly the coop. Underbaked conflicts needed more airtime. In particular, Ruby’s brother Leo (Daniel Durant) finds himself in the unenviable situation of feeling marginalized by the Hearing world, yet underused within his own family. His parents depend on Ruby to communicate with the external world and ignore Leo’s attempts at contributing creative solutions to their problems, leaving him with the conundrum of having to find his own value elsewhere. In addition, seeing the Rossi family navigate blue collar work among Hearing colleagues provides intriguing material. Viewers would have benefitted from a film that trafficked more in the reality of its broader cast and less in the clichéd dream given to Ruby.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Written and directed by a woman, and told through the point of view of a female lead, CODA stands out in a genre dominated by problematic teen boys. Ruby is given a ton of agency and plays an essential role in her family’s financial solvency through her work on the boat and translations for her parents. She has a romantic relationship, but it doesn’t define her. Instead, she sets the terms for many of her relationships, whether they be with friends, family, or authority figures.
Ruby also has a sweet relationship with her mother Jackie, played by Marlee Matlin—perhaps the world’s most famous Deaf actress who won an Oscar in 1987 for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. For most of the movie, Jackie opposes Ruby’s desire to build a life for herself beyond her family. Ruby has to work hard to show her mother the value of music—an uphill battle for a character who doesn’t experience music the way her daughter does. By the film’s end, CODA adeptly portrays a complicated mother-daughter bond that is both contentious and underpinned by deep love.
Race: 2.5/5
Set in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a city with a 92% white population, this film does not showcase a lot of racial diversity. The only major character of color is Mr. V played by renowned Mexican actor-comedian Derbez who comes across as mostly one-dimensional. Though we see his family at one point, and the film avoids trafficking in jokes about accents or immigration, Mr. V. plays the role of the ever-patient and supportive mentor, an older, seasoned character (often of color) who exists purely to facilitate a white protagonist towards their goals.
Bonus for Disability: +1.00
CODA clearly trusts its magnetic cast to honestly portray dimensionality within a Deaf family. In a welcome move, Deaf characters are uniformly played by Deaf actors. Matlin, and Troy Kotsur as Ruby’s father Frank, play unique and hilarious characters with their own strengths and foibles. Frank shares many tender, heartwarming moments with Ruby, and I would not be surprised (or at all disappointed) if Kotsur gets awards buzz for his work as a conflicted and charming father. It’s practically impossible to walk away from the film without being heartened by the warm portrait of the Rossi family.
Bonus for Age: +0.50
As mentioned above, Matlin and Kotsur—who were both over 50 years old at the time of CODA’s release—embody perhaps the most interesting characters in the whole movie. In Matlin’s case, women are much less likely to receive three-dimensional roles after age 50, let alone roles that celebrate their sexuality. But a highlight of CODA includes her and her husband’s inability to stop having sex (even as they deal with fungal complications.) While their sex drive is played for laughs, it’s never cruel, instead letting viewers in on the joke and celebrating the undeniable chemistry between these two characters while subverting the usual tropes about disability and sexuality.
Mediaversity Grade: B 3.83/5
It’s hard not to feel moved by the charm and tenderness of CODA. But by wrapping a unique family portrait in a tired coming-of-age shell, the film fails to reach its full potential and give its wonderful characters (and the actors who play them) their due.
Like CODA? Try these other titles featuring Deaf characters.
Sound of Metal (2020)
Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements (2019)
A Quiet Place (2018)