Review: CODA and Parenting
"I prayed that you would be deaf," a mom played by Marlee Matlin says in CODA. "I was worried we wouldn't connect. I thought I would fail you."
In most ways, CODA (the title is an acronym for Children of Deaf Adults) is a conventional film, that introduces us to a culture that has not much been explored on-screen. A fantastic Emilia Jones plays Ruby, a high school student in a Massachusetts fishing village. In addition to school, where she joins a choir and discovers her love of singing, she helps her family — her mom, dad and brother all are deaf — with their fishing business. Ruby works hard at school and on the boat, and when her choir teacher encourages her to apply to music college, it leads to conflict.
There are a million movies about kids rebelling against the lives that their families want for them. The family against a teenager’s dream is a constant exploration in coming-of-age movies. Vikramaditya Motwayne's Udaan is a fine example. However, CODA stands out. It feels fresh because it is so well performed, especially by Frank (Troy Kostur) and Leo (Daniel Durrant), and it's details are so sharply executed. We have seen movies that centers around a person who is deaf (Nagesh Kukoonoor's 2005 hit Iqbal) but CODA's depiction of Ruby as the outsider in her own family leads to plenty of rich, unexpected scenes.
It is always difficult raising a child. And Ruby's parents and family faces just that. Ruby's parents, can't understand her interest in music and have a hard time figuring out if she's any good. They are constantly pulling at her, knowing that she is the one that is holding the family together. In one scene, Ruby's brother swipes through Tinder on the dinner table, and her parents are actively engrossed in the phone as that is something that they can 'do as a family'.
Ruby's father, a tall bearded man mocks fun at Ruby when she says she wants to join the choir. " If I was blind, you would want to paint", he says.
There's also the family business. The parents come out as being selfish for expecting their daughter to help run it at the cost of her own dreams. Ruby's relationship with her big brother, who tells her, "Our family was fine before you were born," is especially compelling. In Durant's complex performance, we sense both that he resents Ruby on some level and that he is pushing her away because he knows she needs to pursue her dreams.
Writer-director Sian Heder designs a striking world of hate and alienation in the first half of the film. But then, in the second half, the film delivers a rousing finale, which features not one but two moving scenes that reveal how music can bring together people, even if they experience it in very different ways.
One of my favorite scenes is when Ruby is singing. There is a striking silent sequence from the parent’s point of view that suggested their alienation from Ruby’s talent or dream. However, the void is quickly filled in an emotionally transforming scene, when Frank puts his hand on Ruby’s neck while she sings a song for him. Frank might not hear, but he could at least feel the vibrations stirred by Ruby’s voice. The intensity of emotions bridged the gap of disability as Frank understood what singing meant for his daughter.
Post this, we see a different part of the treatment of the family towards Ruby. Frank and the family escort Ruby to Boston, who gives an energetic audition for Berklee College of Music. It is a soul-stirring performance that can even make the strongest man weep like a child. Ruby not only gave voice to the words but also interpreted the lyrics for her family, who discreetly were seated back in the audition.
Ruby, in charge of the once fishing business of the family, is now given fins to dive deeper. While going to Berklee, she gets outs of the car, running to hug her family one last time. Probably, bringing out her return to the Massachusetts, or her return to the family.
Ruby's parents were always against her dream of singing. But only when people told them how good she is, did they believe in her. Frank believed in her only after he heard her throat vibrations. CODA highlights two very different aspects of parenting. What sets the film apart is the indescribable raw innocence that aids the drama. The stakes are not just external but equally internal and thus demands its characters to transform emotionally and psychologically.
CODA is shortlisted for 3 Academy Award nominations including a Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
You can watch it on Apple TV.
