Movie review: CODA

(image courtesy IMP Awards)

Why remake a perfectly good, emotionally resonant film in another language just because you can?

It is one of the questions for the ages, and usually is succinctly answered by “There really was no need”, something that could well be said about CODA, a remake of the 2014 film La Famille Bélier, a delightfully impactful that manages to be both hard-hittingly thoughtful and charming all at once, except for the fact that this new English-language version, a co-production between the United States, France and Canada, is a nicely done piece of cinema in and of itself.

It won’t, of course, redefine the genre in which it sits nor be hailed as a visionary work that smashes cinematic parameters – it will, and has, attracted much attention for the performances of two key actors but more on that later – but you suspect that was never the intent anyway, and nor should it be.

CODA, which stands for Child of Deaf Adults, is simply but more than capably happy to affectingly tell the story of Gloucester, Massachusetts teenager Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member of a family which includes lovingly hot-headed dad Frank (Troy Kotsur), socially isolated mum Jackie (Marlee Matlin) and handsome older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) who has his eyes on Ruby’s devoted bestie Gertie (Amy Forsyth).

Not exactly the most popular kid in school, Ruby has way more responsibility on her shoulders than most kids her age, having fulfilled the role of interpreter and gateway to the world for her family almost since she was born – not quite but it feels that way for her sometimes – who draw their livelihood from fishing, with Ruby helping out her father and brother every morning before school.

While she doesn’t consciously resent her life since it’s all she has ever known and the family, squabbles aside, as famously and caringly tight-knit, especially Frank and Jackie who are in love to such an extent that Ruby often wishes they’d just stop; happily for us, and amusingly for the film, they don’t – she is at an age (her final year of high school) where she begins to wonder what her life will look like away from her family.

It’s not an easy scenario to consider with Ruby all too aware that she is bound in intrinsically practical and tightly emotional ways to her family.

Walking away from them, even for the best of reasons like the chance to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, is almost unthinkable and fiendishly complicated and yet that is precisely what Ruby begins to consider when her music teacher Bernardo “Mr. V” Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez) suggests she try out for the college after she impulsively joins the school choir to be close to her crush, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo).

What follows this spur of the moment is pretty much you’d expect – she and Miles find themselves growing closer despite not being previously on each other’s social or emotional radar, montages occur of her striving and struggling to prepare to be Berklee-worthy and conflicts abound as she tries, and often fails (though not completely or fatally of course) to balance her life goals with the existing requirements of being an intrinsic, indispensable part of the Rossi family.

Not of the major plot points will shake the cinematic world to the foundations, replete with emotional punctuation marks you can see coming a mile off, and while it does get a little frustrating to see major themes and issues disappear from sight almost as quickly as they arise, that makes sense when you consider the primary focus of director/screenwriter Sian Heder is the family Rossi itself.

It’s the dynamics within this loving but understandably flawed family that give CODA narrative focus and its sturdy, beating heart, its attention firmly on how three Deaf people and one hearing person share a family where two cultures both exist harmoniously and clash depending on the moment and prevailing circumstances.

What makes CODA really hit home, apart from Kostur and Jones’ quietly powerful, affecting performances, is how deftly the film addresses this clash, which is not really a clash at all at first since the Rossis has loving co-existence down to a fine art.

Where the film really comes alive is when Ruby begins to push against the safe and secure envelope of her cosy family world, one in which she inextricably belongs, as anyone does to their family, but which she also does not in certain key ways that neither her parents or brother nor she have ever really grappled with.

But as Ruby begins to express herself musically, something Jackie initially interprets as a dig at her deafness – “If I was blind, would you want to be a painter?” – and her failings as a mother, the rest of the family slow begin to deal with the fact that maybe they have all played it too safe for too long.

To be clear, CODA does not say there is anything wrong with the way the film has lied up to this point; their bonds are enviously tight (something Miles, from a fractiously argumentative family wishes he had), their love for each other palpable and their practical and intangible ways of expressing it obvious to all, and nourishing in a way all good, gloriously flawed but supportive families are.

What it does try to say, and says mostly well, is that any of us, what our capabilities as people, can find ourselves inadvertently playing it safe, sticking to what we know simply because it offers the path of least resistance and fewer complications.

As the Rossi family realise this, tensions arise and conversations, some rather loudly, are had, but much like La Famille Bélier, these are resolved in ways dramatic but mostly not so, insightfully recognising that even big life moments like possibly getting into college and disrupting the hitherto smooth passage of family life are usually resolved and dealt with in ways that are small but important and huge and overdone.

Big things often happen in the quiet moments and CODA winningly recognises this, and while there are times you wish there was more punch to proceedings, and that maybe some of the seismic shifts in the Rossi family, such as Ruby literally and figuratively finding her voice, and Frank and Leo takes proactive steps to protect and grow their livelihood, would deliver more bang for the narrative buck, there are some moments such as when Jackie and her daughter finally stop sniping and actively talk to each other or Ruby sits out under the stars and discusses her future with her dad that really grab your heart and never let it go.

That goes for the finale which might be a little too montage-heavy and predictable but which really delivers the kind of emotional body blow you want from a film such as CODA, which sensitively and perceptively addresses the simultaneous divide and the togetherness in a family of mixed Deaf and hearing people while exploring universal themes of self-discovery, existential bravery and leaping boldly into the future unknown while holding tight to the very good and wonderful things that got you there in the first place.

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