CODA review: A familiar tune delivered with real heart

It’s not always easy to watch the year’s big Oscar winners. They might be confined to the art house circuit – screening in one remote location at inconvenient times. They might have ended their cinema run, and be sitting in that annoying no man’s period between big and small screen release. Or, they might never even reach your area (legally anyway).

Things are different with CODA, though, the movie that won Academy Awards in 2022 for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (for Troy Kotsur). With streaming service Apple TV+ owning the distribution rights, you can watch the coming-of-age comedy-drama right now at home. In fact, you’ve been able to do so since August last year. So, CODA is instantly one of the more accessible Best Film winners, and that accessibility extends beyond the ability to simply watch it.

It starts with a relatable, arguably too familiar, plot that comes with a key twist. In CODA, which is a remake of a French-Belgian film, Ruby Rossi (Locke and Key’s Emilia Jones) is a 17 year old who loves to sing. She’s talented too, to the point that her choir master Mr V (Eugenio Derbez) believes she has a shot at a scholarship for a prestigious music school. The problem is that Ruby has obligations to her close-knit family, helping her parents (Kotsur, Marlee Matlin) and older brother (Daniel Durant) run their fishing business. Ruby is more than an extra pair of hands to keep the business afloat; she acts as her family’s interpreter as she is the only hearing person in her household. CODA, it turns out, stands for Child of Deaf Adults.

CODA isn’t a big glossy blockbuster – think of the likes of 90’s Oscar winners Braveheart or Forrest Gump – but this intimate domestic drama still classifies as a crowd-pleaser. With CODA, mainstream audiences won’t be alienated by a project that leans into stilted artiness or perpetual gloominess. This isn’t to say that CODA isn’t artfully made. It springs powerful, memorable moments on the audience with filmmaking flair (one perspective switch in a theatre hits particularly hard). It also builds its emotional charge slowly and subtly, thanks to the universally excellent performances from its cast.

The phrase “Representation matters” gets thrown around a lot, but these days it’s mostly applied to onscreen depictions of minority and underrepresented groups such as non-Caucasian and LGBT+ communities. CODA steps up with a refreshing depiction of the lived experience of deaf individuals, portrayed by deaf actors.

The film doesn’t veer away from showing the frustrations of the hearing impaired, particularly the sense of being isolated from simple social interactions. Matlin and Durant’s characters both make frank comments about their exclusion (Durant’s Leo is particularly sensitive to being treated as if he’s mentally lagging). This said, CODA doesn’t wallow in anguish. The film is never ableist, going out of its way to show the Rossis as self-sufficient, motivated and valuable members of the community. At the same time, they’re not placed on a pedestal as disabled saints. They’re flesh and blood humans with a full spectrum of emotions – including sexual – that run very hot, and a bawdy sense of humour.

CODA’s storyline honestly doesn’t lead anywhere unexpected, but the film consistently surprises in other ways. It successfully places viewers in the shoes of its deaf characters, generating a sense of empathy and understanding I personally had never experienced before in regards to living with deafness.

Again, CODA doesn’t wallow. It has dramatic moments, of course, but it isn’t out to shake a response from audiences, or coat its biggest emotional beats in syrup while orchestral strings soar in the background. It’s unnecessary. The tears arrive regardless – or perhaps because the film keeps things low-key, grounded and real. CODA treads a familiar path, but it does so with a quiet confidence and steadiness that is sure to move you.

Watch CODA now on Apple TV+.