'CODA' review: A feel-good family story that's worth the Oscar hype
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After winning big at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Producers Guild Awards, and the Writers Guild Awards, CODA has emerged as a major contender to take home the top prize at the 2022 Academy Awards. Its late awards season momentum has divided pundits, with some dubbing it this year's Oscar "villain" and others viewing it as a scrappy Sundance darling-turned Oscar underdog.
Awards discourse aside, CODA — written and directed by Siân Heder — is a great movie, and a much-needed step forward for deaf representation in Hollywood. CODA's deaf characters are played by Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, and Daniel Durant, who are themselves deaf. This is unfortunately not always the case in film and TV, with hearing actors taking roles that could have gone to members of the Deaf community.
If you haven't seen CODA yet, there's no better time to catch it then now, right at the end of an awards season it has dominated.
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Adapted from the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, CODA — which stands for "Child of Deaf Adults" — centers on Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), a high school senior who is the only hearing member of a Deaf family. CODA trades La Famille Bélier's setting of rural France for Gloucester, Massachusetts, where Ruby helps her father Frank (Kotsur) and brother Leo (Durant) on their fishing boat. She also acts as the family's interpreter — much of the film's dialogue is in American Sign Language.
Ruby also has a passion and real talent for singing. Her overbearing yet supportive choir teacher (Eugenio Derbez) encourages her to apply to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Here lies the big dilemma of the movie: Ruby has never done anything without her family, yet she wants to pursue something they don't connect with. She worries that if she chases her dreams, she'll hurt the people she loves, as well as their fishing business.
The plot of CODA treads familiar ground, veering close to the tried-and-true formula of other coming-of-age classics like Billy Elliot. But there's no shame in a formula done well, and CODA does more than well. Thanks to excellent performances and Heder's sharp writing and direction, CODA rises above any possibility of triteness to become a moving, heartwarming, and deeply satisfying film.
There's no shame in a formula done well, and "CODA" does more than well.
Much of CODA's success comes from just how grounded it feels. From the Rossis working on their boat to Ruby's sweetly awkward interactions with her crush Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), Heder immerses you in the world of the film. Even the musical performances by Ruby and her choir aren't overly edited or auto-tuned. Any minor vocal flubs enhance a scene's realism instead of detract from it.
More than anything, CODA is a portrait of a family. Ruby may be the main character, but Heder fleshes out Frank, Leo, and Ruby's mother Jackie (Matlin) just as much as she does her lead. They all have their own clear desires and worries, which Heder explores in a plot thread involving the Rossis starting a fishing co-op.
Jones, Kotsur, Matlin, and Durant are all nothing short of exceptional, nailing their familial chemistry from their very first moments together on screen. Scenes between the Rossis run the gamut from hilarious, like when Frank and Jackie embarrass Ruby by talking about their sex life, to heartbreaking, like when Leo and Ruby argue about her going to Berklee.
Whether CODA wins Best Picture or not, it has cemented itself as one of the most nuanced and compelling portrayals of family from the past year. It sticks with you long after you've seen it, especially its climactic (and tearjerking) performances of "You're All I Need To Get By" and "Both Sides Now." So don't let the late awards season vitriol get to you: CODA is well worth the watch.
CODA is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
