Sometimes a movie comes along that encapsulates everything the word beautiful means and embodies. CODA is that movie, airing on AppleTV+. CODA means “children of deaf adults” and that is what Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is, plus her older brother is deaf as well.
The family runs a fishing boat and high school-aged Ruby is needed to serve as a helper, plus translate to hearing folks when necessary. The thing is, she has other dreams that at the commencement of the movie are as distant as the moon.
Through a fluke, the shy and reserved farmgirl teenager signs up for choir—honestly, to get closer to a boy. But then, thanks to that teacher we’ve all had that made all the difference in the world in our lives, Ruby finds her voice.
Eugenio Derbez’s Bernardo Villalobos is a Berkeley School of Music grad who finds himself teaching choice and music to high schoolers and lives for that moment when he can find a diamond in the rough, much less two. He believes he has found it with Ruby, but there are complicated issues whose reality weigh heavily on the teenager.
Her entire family is deaf—her father Frank Rossi (Troy Kotsur), older brother Leo Rossi (Daniel Durant), and his mother Jackie Rossie (Marlee Matlin). Mr. Villalobos is offering to help Ruby every day because he believes she should audition for Berkeley and has a true gift of song. Yet, can she leave her family who desperately needs her?
The Massachusetts set drama, with sensational sonic moments sprinkled throughout, will hit you immensely in the heart and never let you go until its final notes. There are “touching” movies whose hold of our heartstrings continues for decades and after experiencing CODA, it is an absolute that this utterly endearing film from writer-director Sian Heder that touches parts of your soul that films rarely reach. The helmer has a touch to her film that is not pitch-perfect, but it is the rare perfect movie that fails to have a single fault from opening moments to its, well, Coda.
The Rossis are an endless vat of love for each other. Sure, they fight and rub each other the wrong way on occasion. But don’t we all? To witness this family is a treasure. They may lack hearing and a way to communicate with the outside world without Ruby. But they make up for it with determination and hard work that is honestly too tame to describe the ethic this clan possesses when it comes to making money selling fish as their family has for generations.
They are determined to show their neighbors and fellow fish folk that they are just as qualified to work these waters as anyone else. Experiencing that fortitude is not only inspiration, it makes for a fantastic film.
Who doesn’t want to pull for the vocational underdog, all the while masked as a story about an individual finding and following her dreams and maximizing her potential. All with her family standing in the way, coming to terms with their reality and possibly, must possibly, showing some encouragement that would make all the difference in the world to Ruby.
Jones is sensational as Ruby. She plays both sides of the hearing and deaf world with equal panache that is simultaneously teen angst and the innate human desire for self-preservation. When she meets the boy that she (kind of likes) and has to duet it with on You’re All I Need to Get By for the big Fall Concert. Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), viewers get to see a tad of what could be, a caterpillar who may just turn into a butterfly.
Derbez was an interesting choice to play the music teacher, Mr. Villabolos. He has been on an incredible career run of the last couple of years. To witnessing him play the smaller (but incredibly vital role) is a credit to the writing of the screenwriter that it would strike the actor in such a way that he had to inhabit this part.
He not only had to be the music teacher, but he also had to serve as an inspirational figure that has to straddle a line between tough love and unbridled awe at the talent that has landed on his choir’s front door. The actor channels the entire actor’s toolbox and delivers what may be one of the more important monologues of the entire picture.
Meanwhile, the family Rossi is as raw as they are real and their intensity, love, and immense inter-caring that is contagious. Kasur is sensational as the father, Frank. One can literally feel the fish seeping through his veins as much as one can sense the immense adoration and passion he feels for his wife, Jackie. Their relationship is divine, delightful, and adorable.
Matlin, meanwhile, is her usual awesome self. Jackie is a different role for her. She is a free spirit, who is firmly in her deaf world with her deaf family. On one hand, she doesn’t understand her daughter’s desire to sing, saying, “if we were blind, would you be a painter?” Don’t misjudge, she cares deeply for her daughter, it is just in Heder’s film, in a community of hearing souls, a deaf family must stick together.
The problem is the family business may not be able to survive without Ruby. But if they don’t let her discover that there could be something there in the talent department, nobody involved with ever live it down.
CODA is one of the best films of the year. It’s early, so it’s hard to say. But as of right now, it is the best of the year. Heder’s film will destroy you in the best of ways. Sometimes it’s good to purge the soul of emotion and ever there was a time in our history that warranted such a film, it is right now.
It makes you feel good. It’ll make you weep. It’ll make you laugh, smile, and most importantly, serve as one of those benchmark films that illustrates why the medium is as powerful as it is.
Grade: A+