I’d gotten far enough along with CODA where I felt comfortable writing the following: “Avoided the trap of showing the deaf perspective to scenes, which I kept thinking they were going to. Felt like it was always coming, an obligation, but they resisted the urge. There were no tricks in the sound design (ala Sound of Metal) and NOOOOPE. THEY JUST DID IT. LITERALLY AS I AM WRITING THESE WORDS” I’m not sure why cutting out the audio felt trite, like it would almost definitely be a misstep, or why I was so surprised when they finally indulged. In reality, it was fine. This entire movie is a master class in doing the obvious thing in the "2020s TV is Movies Now" Content Landscape, and by that I mean: play the role of little movie that could — a digitally-shot TV-ass-looking level heartstring strummer for boomers, but you know, besides all that “indie a.f.” — all the while taking up real estate on a whole panel of thumbnails on the Apple+ home screen.
And yet, somehow, even an old curmudgo like mwa can’t deny there’s a certain charm here, and when the charm hits (mostly because of magnetic lead Emilia Jones), folks, I tell you: I am not immune. Some examples? For as much as I did hate the caricature/trope of the choir director, and how badly I felt the actor overdid it, I was never THAT annoyed by it. I could never hear another teen sex joke as long as I lived, and even in the context of having them delivered in ASL did not change my opinion on the matter. But I let them roll off my back. I was in the high school choir too, ya know. My ‘rents weren’t deaf, but they were deaf to my artistic leanings in many ways. They just expected me to be the captain of the football, homecoming king and general hunk about town, and while, yes, I did all of those things, my real love was music, sweet music. Our choir director was a flamboyant sort too: an openly gay man who spoke with a southern drawl. He saw something in me that screamed, "yes you could definitely fill out the chorus in this year’s production of Brigadoon, can you wear a kilt?" Yes, I can, "OK, you’re hired." And when I wanted to quit the thing a few weeks before showtime because I was scorned by a girl, he coerced the vice principal into blackmailing me because he somehow knew that I had been a part of an operation that stole a bunch of long-sleeve T-shirts earlier in the year, and so I did the stupid Brigadoon under threat of suspension, but I wouldn’t let the makeup ladies put makeup on me and I did not smile and when I tried not to sing, something strange happened: I couldn’t do it. Something moved me. I did the dance steps and I sang. In my kilt, I sang loudly. And I learned then, in all my toil and trouble, that it’s better to embrace everything, to find the good, no matter how hidden, and it is in this way I am basically exactly like the teenage girl from this movie and also the film critic reviewing it. Thanks for reading this review —Rigatoni Steve. I mean JEFF, sorry!... it’s JUSTIN “MovieJeff.com” JEFFERSON of MovieJeff.com, haha of course it is.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 440A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 441 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 440A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 441 ⫸
CODA is a 2021 coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Sian Heder. An English-language remake of the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, it stars Emilia Jones as the eponymous CODA (child of deaf adults), the only hearing member of a deaf family, who struggles to balance her attempts to help her family's struggling fishing business and her own life aspirations. It was released on January 28, 2021.
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