Is CODA in the Oscars race?
The Sundance Film Festival darling hit theaters and Apple TV+ this weekend.
The Short Take:
If you’re tired of the dark, edgy films and series that dominate our screens these days, and just want to feel the warmth and love of a good, old-fashioned family story, stream CODA (child of deaf adults) on Apple TV+. A little schmaltzy and formulaic as a coming of age story, but thoughtfully showcases sign language and deafness.
The Long Take:
The discourse surrounding CODA, written and directed by Sian Heder, has been extremely polarized. The film kicked off last year’s Sundance Film Festival and then went on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award there. And then Apple bought the film out. For 25 MILLION DOLLARS. This, based on the articles I was reading at the time, was a record-breaking, crazy amount of money for Apple to throw down. Meanwhile, some critics deride the film, calling it saccharine and overrated.
So you can imagine how nervous I was going into this one. I put my critic hat on, all ready to judge. And during the first half of it — where we get introduced to the main character, Ruby, with all her teenaged trials and tribulations, and her deaf parents and brother struggling to try to make ends meet with their family fishing boat, facing an exploitative distributor and increasing regulations — I was ready to call this derivative and predictable. I was ready to say that Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird (2017) is a much better coming of age story, or, more specifically, graduating high school and applying to college story. The script for CODA, by comparison, is a little aimless, the characters a little generic, the writing a little bland.
Ruby is the only member of her family who can hear, and she has loved music and singing all of her life. An eccentric choir teacher recognizes her potential and encourages her to apply to the Berklee School of Music in Boston (side note to my New Englanders out there: there are lot of Bruins shirts and Red Sox hats and the film was shot on location in Gloucester, MA). On the first day they meet, he says to the choir, “Let’s see if you’re any good or if you’ve just watched one too many episodes of Glee.” And I couldn’t help thinking that the film was also trying to be an episode of Glee. (There is just SO much soulful singing. It’s good soulful singing, so if that’s your thing stop now and start watching.)
But then, about halfway through, the slowly-building tension snaps into compelling conflict, and from that point on the polar ice cap of my film snob heart just kept melting until I was sobbing into a tissue. It got to me. Is it manipulative to bring a puppy with you to an argument? Sure, but that doesn’t mean you should hold a grudge against puppies.
“Feel good”-ness in a film, in of itself, is not intrinsically bad from an artistic perspective. Something doesn’t have to be depressing or traumatizing to be good. (Although some critics certainly act as if this is the case.) To pull it off, though, the characters have to be fully-formed, and the writing has to have personality. I can’t say that this film has either of these in overwhelming amounts, but the second half has much more than the first.
Fortunately, CODA has its representation of deafness to set it apart from others of its kind. The use of ASL, to me, provides more than enough substance to make all the heart work. Heder stages conversations in scenes and holds the camera in a way that frames actors’ hands rather than faces in the center. Doing so invites viewers to watch the signs and process them as language, even if they can’t interpret it literally. I suddenly saw ASL as this vibrant, expressive, and funny language. There were even a couple of moments that demonstrated how there are some concepts or ideas that might only be expressed by signs. CODA presents ASL as poetry.
[Somewhat mild SPOILERS ahead because I’ll reference specific scenes that are relevant to my points. It’s only an issue if you want to see this film without knowing what happens AT ALL. None of the scenes I discuss are plot twists or reveals.]
The major criticism of the film’s portrayal of the deaf community is that it sends a damaging message that deaf people can’t appreciate music and would stop others from appreciating it. I will admit that in parts of the film, when Ruby’s parents keep telling her that they’re counting on her help with their fishing business and to basically act as a bridge between the deaf and hearing worlds for them, it felt like the film was portraying her family as selfish and burdensome, which, admittedly, is not a good look for the deaf community as a whole.
But I have two counterpoints to this: codependency is a big theme of the film overall, and, as someone who grew up with small business owners for parents, I can attest that feeling like you can’t do other things for yourself because you need to help your family thrive is not specific to CODAs like Ruby. And secondly, there is a scene early on in the film where Ruby’s father blares rap in his truck because he’s rocking out to the vibrations. So, later on, when we see Ruby’s family feeling out of place at her choir concert, it’s less about them being inconsiderate or closed off to music and more that we as a society are ableist for setting up concerts only so that hearing people can enjoy them.
This critique of an ableist society rather than a critique of deaf parents clicked into place for me (and made me stop worrying about the deaf people being portrayed negatively in the film) when Ruby’s brother tells her that their family doesn’t actually need her because he can communicate with hearing people on their parents’ behalf. He says, “You’re so afraid we’d look stupid. Let them figure out how to deal with deaf people. We’re not helpless.” This moment made me realize that the film may be trying to highlight generational differences in how the deaf view their own deafness. Ruby’s parents seem to choose isolation and rely on Ruby as a go-between. Her brother seems so much less embarrassed and self-conscious; he wants to make society realize that he’s a capable person with whom they should make an attempt to engage. I couldn’t help but think of the only other film in recent memory that tried to instill the notion that deafness was not a defect or a disability that needs curing: Sound of Metal (2019). Riz Ahmed’s character in that film becomes deaf as an adult and, in addition to battling addiction, becomes obsessed with the idea of “fixing” his “broken” ears. I like these two films as a pair because there’s a push for the abled to change how they think about the disabled.
There’s a world of difference between them, though. I would never recommend Sound of Metal to my own parents, but I would 100% recommend CODA to them. It’s a heartwarming story about a family that loves each other even when they don’t understand each other, and a talented young person following her dreams. And considering how much we probably need stories like that right now, this may have more of a foot in the Oscars race than critics would like to think.