CODA (2021) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Sian Heder

Starring:  Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Durant, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth

CODA on its surface is a movie we've seen before.  A teenage girl wishes to pursue her dreams and leave the nest of a family which loves her and depends on her.   Any decision will surely ruffle feathers; either her family's or her own.  But, CODA takes what could've been formulaic storytelling and transforms it into something magical and moving.   CODA is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults.  The child in question is Ruby Rossi (Jones), a high school senior who gets up at 3am each morning to help her deaf father Frank (Kotsur-in his Oscar-winning performance) and deaf brother Leo (Durant) on the family fishing boat before running off to school.   Sometimes she forgets to change or wash up, leading to ridicule from other students who make fun of her for smelling like fish.

Ruby loves 70's music and to sing it.   She has quite the voice, which is brought out in full force by her demanding, but caring choir teacher Bernard Villalobos (Derbez).  But poor Ruby is exhausted by juggling the demands of her family fishing business with her own desire to attend the Boston music school Berklee.  She is run ragged and soon will have to make a decision which would alter her life and her family's.   While Ruby is working through her situation, Frank and his loving wife Jackie (Matlin) plot a course to begin selling the fish they catch independently instead of being paid pennies on the dollar for their catch on the docks.

You think you know where CODA will take us as far as the plot is concerned.   However, what makes CODA special is its universality.   Ruby's parents and brother are deaf and feel isolated from the community.   There is a fall musical where Ruby performs in which the show is seen partly from the point of view of Frank, Jackie, and Leo.   They know music (Frank blasts hip hop in his truck because he enjoys the vibration of the beats), but they need to see how it lights Ruby up.   We know Ruby's family will object to her decision to study music because they've come to depend on her.   They're not being selfish as much as they're so used to Ruby being there that they're not sure how they could deal with life without her. 

We also know the family will eventually support Ruby and the transitional scene in which Ruby sings to Frank is so powerful because he can finally understand where Ruby's passions lie.   Kotsur does this with empathy and understanding.   Kotsur's Frank is a scruffy salt-of-the-earth fisherman who loves his work and his family and isn't afraid to be human.  He, Jackie, and Leo make the best of their situation and don't cry out to be pitied.   CODA doesn't underline its characters' deafness.  It accepts the idea that, yes there are deaf people in the world and they have their own voices and language.  

CODA's climactic scenes involving Ruby's audition and her eventual leaving home are handled with sensitivity and a stirring rendition of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now.   CODA makes an old song feel new and fresh simply by giving us a family we just fall in love with.   I fell in love with the movie too.  

ot one for hyperbole but CODA is among the best films in recent memory.