coda 2020 movie review

At first glance, you might think that writer/director Sian Heder ’s “CODA” is all about predictable beats you’ve seen countless times before. After all, it tells a pleasantly familiar coming-of-age tale, following a talented small-town girl from modest means with dreams to study music in the big city. There’s an idealistic teacher, a winsome crush, moving rehearsal montages, a high-stakes audition, and naturally, a family reluctant about their offspring’s ambitions. Again—and only at first glance—you might think you already know everything about this feel-good recipe.

Caring, boisterous, and adorned with the hugest of hearts, “CODA” will prove you wrong. It’s not that Heder doesn’t embrace the aforesaid conventions for all their comforting worth—she does. But by twisting the formula and placing this recognizable story inside a new, perhaps even groundbreaking setting with such loving, acutely observed specificity, she pulls off nothing short of a heartwarming miracle with her film, the title of which is an acronym: Child of Deaf Adult. Played by the exceptional Emilia Jones (who is blessed with Grade-A pipes), the gifted young girl in question here happens to be one, navigating the intricacies of her identity, passions, and familial expectations, trying to reconcile them without hurting anyone’s feelings, her own included.

Admittedly, “CODA” is adapted from the French film “La Famille Bélier,” so the idea of it isn’t entirely novel. What’s new here—and it makes all the difference in the world—is the cast. While the family in the well-meaning original were played by hearing cast members (with the exception of the brother brought to life by deaf actor Luca Gelberg), they are all portrayed by real-life deaf performers in Heder’s movie—a sensational group consisting of legendary Oscar winner Marlee Matlin , scene-stealing Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant —infusing her adaptation with a rare, inherent kind of authenticity.

Jones is the 17-year-old Ruby, a hardworking high-schooler in the coastal Cape Ann’s Gloucester who habitually wakes up at the crack of dawn every day to help her family—her father Frank (Kotsur) and brother Leo (Durant) and mother Jackie (Matlin)—at their boat and newly found fish sales business. Heder is quick to give us a realistic taste of Ruby’s routine. Accustomed to being her family’s sign-language-proficient interpreter out in the world as the only hearing member of the Rossi clan, she spends her days translating every scenario imaginable two ways: at town meetings, at the doctor’s office (one early instance of which plays for full-sized laughs thanks to Kotsur’s golden comedic chops) and at the boat where a hearing person must be present to notice the signals and coastal announcements.

What Ruby has feels so balanced and awe-inspiring that it takes a minute to recognize just how exhausting the whole arrangement is for the young girl, even though she makes it look easy with maturity and a sense of responsibility beyond her years. For starters, she is all too aware of everything private about her parents, often including their medical conditions and (to her riotous terror), sex life. When the hearing world becomes cruel or belittling, she steps in, almost with protective instincts, always prioritizing them over herself. But when Ruby joins the school choir and discovers her talent for singing, it throws off her balance and puts her at odds with her family, especially when she decides to apply to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, adopting a rehearsal schedule that often clashes with her duties in the family business. Complicating the matters further is a fellow singer and romantic interest named Miles ( Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from “ Sing Street ”), a shy kid with a genuine admiration for Ruby.

If there’s one misstep here, it’s how far Heder leans into the inspiring teacher trope with Eugenio Derbez ’s Bernardo Villalobos, a character that somehow transmits a sitcom-y artificiality in an otherwise earnest movie. Derbez does what he can with a collection of cookie-cutter dialogue lines, but his scenes don’t always land with the same honesty we see elsewhere in “CODA.” Still, this lapse in judgment feels minor in a movie so affecting, so in touch with its old-fashioned crowd-pleaser character. (Had it actually played in a physical version of the Sundance 2021 instead of its virtual edition, this would have been the standing ovation story of the festival.) And plenty of other types of sincerity throughout “CODA” make up for it, from the way Heder portrays Cape Ann and the life around it through lived-in details, to how she honors the joys and anxieties of a working class family with candor and humor, without ever making them or their Deafness the butt of the joke.

Most of all, she makes us see and believe in our bones that the Rossis are a real family with real chemistry, with real bonds and trials of their own, both unique and universal just like any other family. What Ruby’s chosen path unearths is the distinctiveness of those everyday battles. Would her sound-driven talent put a distance between Ruby and the rest of the Rossis? What would the world look like for the quartet if Ruby chose to leave? Through a number of deeply generous (and to this critic, tear-jerking) scenes—but especially a pair that play like each other’s mirror images—Heder spells out the answers openhandedly. During one, all sound vanishes while Ruby sings in front of her nearest and dearest, making us perceive her act from the point of view of the non-hearing. During the other, featuring a well-chosen track that might just melt even the frostiest of hearts, sound doesn’t matter at all. Because Heder ensures that we see the boundless love that’s there, in their shared language.

On Apple TV+ today.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi
• Eugenio Derbez as Bernardo Villalobos
• Troy Kotsur as Frank Rossi
• Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Miles
• Daniel Durant as Leo Rossi
• Marlee Matlin as Jackie Rossi
• Amy Forsyth as Gertie
• Geraud Brisson
• Marius De Vries

Cinematographer

• Paula Huidobro

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‘CODA’ Review: A Voice of Her Own

An openhearted embrace of deaf culture elevates this otherwise conventional tale of a talented teenager caught between ambition and loyalty.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

The template of “CODA” — the title is also a term used to describe the hearing children of deaf adults — might be wearyingly familiar, but this warmhearted drama from Sian Heder opens up space for concerns that feel fresh.

Ruby (Emilia Jones, delightful), a shy 17-year-old in Gloucester, Mass., is the lone hearing member of her rambunctious family. Between interpreting for her parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur), and helping run the family’s fishing boat with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant) each morning before school, Ruby is exhausted. Since childhood, she has been her family’s bridge to the hearing world; now, her newly awakened desire to sing is perhaps the one thing they will struggle most to understand.

Weighed down by a groaningly predictable plot — which includes a cute-boy crush, a colorful music teacher (Eugenio Derbez) and a climactic singing audition — “CODA” relishes the opportunity to showcase the expressiveness of sign language. (The film is extensively subtitled.) The actors work together seamlessly, the blue-collar coastal setting is richly realized and the family’s cohesiveness solidly established. And if some interactions move to the clichéd beats of a sitcom, Ruby’s efforts to share her musical talent (notably in one lovely scene with her father) are remarkably affecting.

More than once, Heder effectively flips the film’s viewpoint to that of her deaf characters (who are all played by deaf actors). At a school concert, the camera watches Ruby’s family in the audience as the soundtrack abruptly cuts out, allowing us to glimpse the sometimes blanketing isolation of a silent world. In moments like this, when the quippy dialogue subsides and the story relaxes, we see the ghost of a more fruitful movie, one that would rather surprise its viewers than feed them a formula they have come to expect.

CODA Rated PG-13 for unrestrained flatulence and a bawdy mime. In English and American Sign Language with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Watch on Apple + .

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The playful, fearless CODA asks tough questions about Deaf family life

Orange is the New Black’s Siân Heder lays out a family drama with humor and heart

by Matt Patches

[ Ed. note: This review was first published in conjunction with CODA ’s release at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival . It has been updated for the film’s theatrical release.]

Logline: As her senior year comes to an end, Ruby (Emilia Jones), the only hearing person in her Deaf family, is torn between studying music at college and remaining at home to help — and maybe save — the family fishing business.

Longerline: As a CODA, a Child of Deaf Adults, Ruby juggles multiple roles at the young age of 18. She’s a daughter, a student, a musician, a fisherman, and a translator. In the mornings, she lends her father, Frank (Troy Kotsur), and brother, Leo (Daniel Durant), an ear and an extra pair of hands as they trawl for fish off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She’s an animated, no-bullshit character while gabbing around the dinner table with her mom, Jackie (Marlee Matlin), or negotiating a fish sale, but at school, she can’t find her voice. After catching the eye of the firebrand music teacher (Eugenio Derbez) during a show-choir audition, Ruby suddenly sees a path for her future: vocal training, the Berklee College of Music, and a life beyond her family. It’s reasonably terrifying.

In this microcosmic moment, everything Ruby knows begins to change. A crackdown on fishing boats puts her father and brother’s deafness under systematic scrutiny and threatens the local fishing industry at large. Her musical pursuits raise the question of what her family will do without her; everyone is perfectly functional in navigating society without vocal speech, but juuuust dependent enough on Ruby as a business liaison that no one can imagine her leaving home. The growing intensity of her Berklee audition rehearsals and a blossoming relationship with her fellow choirmate, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peele), pressurize the already intensely intimate scenario.

What’s CODA trying to do? Writer-director Siân Heder ( Orange Is the New Black ) previously made the 2016 Netflix premiere Tallulah , which followed a homeless teenager who inadvertently kidnaps a baby that she believes needs rescuing from an irresponsible mother. In CODA , she again slices off a piece of life and pops it in a pressure cooker. Replacing the ticking clock with a warmer tone, the family drama aims to both portray the challenges of growing up culturally Deaf, and look beyond disabilities to recognize that life’s hardships, whether in a world full of sound or not, are universal.

The quote that says it all: “I can’t always be that person.”

Does it get there? Authentic, sensitive, and playful, CODA remains human even as it tugs at the heartstrings. Heder leaves no anthropological distance between her camera and the subjects, ensuring that the movie never “others” the Deaf characters, while still making sense of how much we rely on hearing for simple tasks. On the same note, there’s a fearlessness to prolonged dialogue scenes playing out in ASL. As they talk through their issues, Frank, Jackie, Leo, and Ruby swing from low to high emotions, and the physicality of the performances are absorbing. The UK-born Jones apparently learned to sign, sing, and put on an American accent for the role, and you’d never know it — she holds the movie together in an astonishing breakout performance.

Circumstance puts extra, often funny-in-retrospect hurdles in front of Ruby and her family. When her dad comes down with a jock itch, his teenage daughter melts in a puddle of awkward as she gestures to convey an inflamed genital rash to the doctor, then translates a prescriptive recommendation of abstinence to her mother. On the docks, Ruby and Leo butt heads over the price of their latest fish haul — she knows from what she can hear that he’s getting scammed, but her older sibling is way too proud to let her play hero.

And during a flirtatious rehearsal for their upcoming duet, Ruby and Miles wind up overhearing Jackie and Frank’s… lively… bedroom activity. These are the trials and tribulations of teen life, plus a twist of fate. (And if there’s one bit that doesn’t quite work, it’s Derbez’s over-the-top music teacher, whose sitcomy tone doesn’t quite match the lived-in feeling of the family comedy.)

Heder finds her way into tension and tougher questions. The family’s fear of the unknown is compounded by the possibilities on the horizon: Ruby has a fabulous voice, a skill her parents will never be able to comprehend as a viable future for their daughter. The anxiety arrives just as Frank’s own career path is thrown out of whack; he’s been fishing all of his life, but the extortion of fisherman by dock bigwigs turns his life into a mini Elia Kazan drama. It isn’t as grim as On the Waterfront , but Frank, Leo, Jackie, and eventually Ruby all wind up in a fight to take hold of their business and livelihoods.

There’s a lot on the line, and Heder strings it all together in a mainstream package that recalls everything from Ordinary People to Save the Last Dance and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before . And while the drama is immediate and timely like those films, it also feels like it has a past and present. This is to say: Yes, I would watch five seasons of the Parenthood version of CODA .

What does that get us? The movie camera is uniquely equipped to get in close and capture a sign-language spat, and the results in the hands of veterans like Kotsur and Matlin are spellbinding. Writers rarely gift two Deaf actors with the chance to go at it. Heder gives them painful moments behind closed doors, tender scenes with Ruby, and bits where they’re just goofy parents. Durant, best known for playing a Deaf character in a reimagined revival of Spring Awakening , is also fully alive and dimensional as Leo, a tough-but-sweet young man who’s looking for his own career path.

CODA offers a simple explanation for the importance of representation on screen: a century of movies born from homogenous perspectives has left so many stories untold, and so many experiences uncharted. There’s a simple thrill in seeing familiar dramas play out in the hands of actors who’ve often been relegated to side roles. Matlin is a hysterical, vibrant movie star-type who always plays “the Deaf character,” but here, she’s the mother, the wife, and the entrepreneur. She has so much to give the screen, and Heder taps it all.

The film may be a little sweet for some tastes (yes, I cried) but CODA is also refined. In a dark moment, I was thankful for the film’s celebration of family, friends, and life.

The most meme-able moment: Get ready for an extended sequence where Ruby’s new guy-pal Miles learns the ASL translation of “masturbating into a condom.”

When can we see it? CODA launches for streaming on Apple TV Plus on August 13.

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Review: 'Coda' is an emotional powerhouse and one of the year's best movies

Here’s the movie that restores the good name of the crowd-pleaser.

Here's the movie that restores the good name of the crowd-pleaser. You'll laugh, you'll cry and all steps in between at the funny, touching and vital "CODA," now in theaters and on Apple TV+. CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. It also represents the very best in family entertainment.

Having broken records with its $25 million sale at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, the Oscar-buzzy "CODA" also describes Ruby Rossi (breakout star Emilia Jones), a hearing Massachusetts high school student who lives with her mom (Marlee Matlin), dad (Troy Kotsur) and hotheaded brother (Daniel Durant), all deaf and all played by deaf actors.

Jones, a British acting and singing discovery, merges effortlessly into the role of an American teen growing up in a Gloucester fishing village. Ruby must, by necessity, act as an intermediary for her working-class family in the hearing world. The livelihood of her parents depends on it.

But what about Ruby's ambition to sing? When her choir teacher Bernardo Villalobos (a sweetly over-the-top Eugenio Derbez) urges her to try for a scholarship at Boston's competitive Berklee College of Music and pairs her with heartthrob duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from "Sing Street"), romance and career start intruding on her role as family point person.

MORE: 'The Green Knight' review: Dev Patel deserves Oscar attention

The movie has great fun with mom and dad's rowdy sex life, especially when they use it to embarrass shy Ruby when she dares to bring home a boy. But Jones is tender and tough when she needs to be to show why the bond holds despite tension between Ruby and her family.

Still, the acting triumphs of "CODA" belong to the trio of deaf actors at its core. Hollywood has traditionally cast non-deaf performers in such roles. In the 2014 French film, "La Famille Bélier," on which "CODA" is based, both parents were played by hearing actors. Not this time.

Matlin, who won an Oscar at 21 for 1986's "Children of a Lesser God" (she's still the only deaf actor to do so) had the clout to insist on representational casting. She's a sparking livewire as Jackie, the loyal mom with an edge who calls other town wives "hearing bitches" and resents Ruby's music ("If I was blind, would you want to paint?").

MORE: Review: 'In the Heights' pure unleashed joy grabs you and never lets go

Ruby's brother Leo (an explosive Durant) is even more disgruntled when Ruby steps in to negotiate the best price at the fish market since Leo feels, rightly, that outsiders need to learn how to cope with his deaf family without cheating them in the process.

As Frank, Ruby's raucous dad, Kotsur is hilarious and heartbreaking. In one scene, he asks Ruby to sing just for him, placing his hands on her throat to feel the vibrations of her vocal cords in his fingers as she sings the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell classic, "You're All I Need to Get By."

If that moment doesn't bring you to tears, an earlier one will have you reaching for a tissue as the sound drops out at a concert in Ruby's school and we understand what the Rossi clan experiences when the audience applauds a musical performance they can't hear or share.

Download the all new "Popcorn With Peter Travers " podcasts on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Tunein , Google Play Music and Stitcher .

All praise to hearing writer-director Sian Heder, who learned American Sign Language to communicate with actors who give their soulful all. Not just with hand gestures, body language and facial expressions, but with the rare ability to connect heart to heart. However you say it or sign it, "CODA" is an emotional powerhouse and one of the year's best movies.

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Coda: Why this year’s feel-good favourite was the right Best Picture Oscar winner

In the chaos of awards season, the internet is starting to grasp wildly for the heroes and villains of this story. and it’d be wrong to dismiss cod’s best picture chances just because it’s a crowd-pleaser, writes clarisse loughrey.

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P eople love to argue about the Oscars , even when they’re not sure exactly what they’re arguing about. And awards season this year hasn’t exactly handed them a tidy narrative to work from – the biopics, like The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Spencer , are a little too self-aware to play as strictly conventional. The A-list-packed satire Don’t Look Up , and the lushly traditional musical West Side Story , fell by the wayside early on in the race.

Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast was the most obvious Oscar bait of the pack, but while Jane Campion’s meticulously directed western, The Power of the Dog, was an early frontrunner, it was Siân Heder’s Coda that ultimately walked away with Best Picture. Some saw this coming: the film had landed several crucial wins during the run-up to Oscars, including the Producers Guild and Screen Actors Guild. Coda , an honest and sincere drama about a hearing child in a deaf family, was something of an underdog when it first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021. The film received rapturous reviews and a healthy dollop of publicity, and walked away from Sundance with a record-breaking $25m acquisition deal with Apple TV+.

You’d think a surprise win like that would add some much-needed joy to a tumultuous, overall quite depressing, ceremony. But people are always looking for the heroes and villains to their story, and it seems like Heder’s film has become a prime target for a lot of the internet’s ire. And the backlash, for the most part, seems largely out of touch with the true, material impact of the Oscars. Ultimately, these awards don’t decide which individual films we remember in a decade’s, or two decades’, time. The Power of the Dog and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car will continue to be talked about in the ways they were talked about before. But they do frequently dictate the kinds of names, ideas, and faces Hollywood is willing to put its money behind.

It mattered when Parasite won, because it helped shake a little of the fear of subtitled films out of English-speaking audiences. It mattered that Chloé Zhao won for Nomadland , because it offered genuine hope that the barriers for women directors, and especially women of colour, were starting to break. And it matters that Coda won because of the doors it will open for other majority deaf casts.

It’s been frequently dismissed by commentators as a shallow crowd-pleaser, but the label only fits if you’re faithfully tied to the assumption that any expression of sentimentality should be equated automatically with naivete. There’s nothing slight or simplistic about Coda . The family at its centre – Frank (Troy Kotsur) and Jackie (Marlee Matlin) plus their kids Leo (Daniel Durant) and Ruby (Emilia Jones) – remain a stubborn, bubbling mess of conflicted desires and personal duties. Ruby wants to be a musician but, as the hearing child of deaf parents, positioned as their de facto interpreter, she worries that striking out on her own would sever one of their few concrete connections to hearing culture. Meanwhile, her father’s work in the fishing industry has come under threat of corporate interference, with 60 per cent of his catch now handed over to middlemen.

There’s nothing cutesy about the difficult choices these characters are forced to make between what they want and who they’ve dedicated themselves to. And Heder’s unfussy approach to the film allows her cast to craft a family dynamic that feels firmly grounded in experience, as they tease and argue, each gesture insulated by love. Coda allows its hearing audience only one moment of concession, as the sound cuts out midway through one of Ruby’s performances. Her parents, reading the micro-gestures and choked-back sobs of the other audience members, finally realise how gifted their daughter is. In a night where, as Best Actress winner Jessica Chastain remarked, the word “love” seemed to be commonly repeated – what could possibly be the harm in the Oscars wanting to reward something of that straightforward, emotional purity?

Find the full list of 2022 Oscar winners here . See the latest updates and reactions from the dramatic ceremony here , and read about the biggest talking points here .

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‘CODA’ Review: Sian Heder’s Family Drama Kicks Off Sundance on a Note of Enthralling Emotion

The story of a high schooler who's the only hearing person in her family, it's an authentic crowd-pleasing gem.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“CODA,” which features three remarkable deaf actors, is most assuredly a crowd-pleaser, though in this case I want to be specific about what that means. In many ways, it’s a highly conventional film, with tailored story arcs that crest and resolve just so, and emotional peaks and valleys that touch big fat rounded chords of inspiration.

Yet the movie, written and directed by Siân Heder (it’s a remake of the 2014 French film “La Famille Bélier”), brings this all off with such sincerity and precision, and the film is so enthrallingly well-acted, that you may come away feeling grateful that this kind of mainstream dramatic craftsmanship still exists, and that it thrives at a place like Sundance. I wouldn’t want every independent film to hit you over the heart as squarely as “CODA” does, yet I wouldn’t want to live in a world where we don’t have movies like this one. In its straightforward way, the film delivers an emotional knockout. It’s a movie about a family, and by the end you may feel you know them as well as you know your own.

They speak in ASL, a form of communication the film treats with supreme neutrality, even as it gives the audience a de facto crash course in it. Frank, in particular, is a highly colorful and effusive signer, given to eloquently obscene kiss-offs that he spits out with a kind of percussive gesticulation. The signage, like any language, has its own music, and Heder, as a filmmaker, captures its expressive power as fully as I’ve ever seen it captured in a movie.

Troy Kotsur, from “The Mandalorian,” is an extraordinary actor, and here, with squiggly hair, burning eyes, and haggard features set off by a thick gray fisherman’s beard, he looks like Roberts Blossom with a touch of an ancient Frank Zappa. Frank, a pothead and ebullient curmudgeon, is a man of force and fury and, at times, too short a fuse. In his pickup truck, he pumps gangsta rap at top volume so that he can feel the rhythm through the seats, and he says things like “You know why God made farts smell? So deaf people could enjoy them too.” His fishing business is struggling, mostly because the middlemen on the Gloucester docks are squeezing the fisherman dry. But back at the large, messy, ramshackle house that Frank shares with his wife, Jackie ( Marlee Matlin ), a former beauty queen who’s as gnarly and argumentative as he is, and their two kids, the Rossis are a feisty, happy, settled clan. They support each other and know how to have fun, even if that means passing around Leo’s Tinder prospects at the dinner table.

At school, Ruby is a serenely well-adjusted if somewhat shy senior, with a best friend, Gertie (Amy Forsyth), who acts out the raunchy impulses Ruby is too cautious to consider. Ruby signs up for choir as an elective, and it’s mostly to be near Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), a shaggy cute dude who’s got the same quiet gracious vibe she does; the singing is secondary. But Ruby, in fact, has quite a voice, and when the choir teacher walks in, with his dandy beard and dour smirk and flamboyant accent, and introduces himself with R-rolling theatricality as Ber- narrrrdo Villalobos, we know just what we’re looking at: a teacher who’s going to be a stern taskmaster, a prize eccentric, and a straight-out-of-the-movies inspiration. Eugenio Derbez portrays him with a grandiose persnickety fervor but, beneath that, a note of unspoken sadness, and it’s an irresistible performance because it becomes a lifesize one.

And then there’s Ruby’s mom. Marlee Matlin plays her with a bracing blend of affection and cantankerousness, making her a bit of a pill, the kind of loving but overly cautious mother who doesn’t realize she’s using her fear to squash the dreams of others. Jackie and Frank have a robust sex life, but they fight like cats and dogs about finances. And Jackie’s relationship with Ruby is even trickier. Ruby, under Mr. V’s influence, wants to apply for a spot at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and Jackie, who already resents her daughter’s attraction to singing (“If I was blind, would you want to paint?”), is now terrified of losing her baby. These two have it out in a scene where Ruby dares to ask her mother if she wishes Ruby had been born deaf. The answer stings, but it’s naked in its honesty, and it kicks off the most wrenchingly emotional movie scene I’ve seen in quite a while.

Siân Heder, who came up as a writer and story editor on “Orange Is the New Black,” has directed just one previous feature (“Tallulah”), but she’s got the gift — the holy essence of how to shape and craft a drama that spins and burbles and flows. There are daring touches in “CODA,” like the way the school concert plays out (rarely have you heard silence this golden). And there are scenes that will stir you to the core, like the one where Frank listens to Ruby sing by holding up his hands to her vocal cords. As Ruby, Emilia Jones acts with a captivatingly authentic purity of feeling. Her Ruby is a girl of vibrant impulses, poised between Motown and the Shaggs — and more than that, between acting as her parents’ communicator to the outside world and communicating to them what’s really on her mind. All of them are great talkers. But the story the movie tells is about what it takes for them to hear each other.

Reviewed in Sundance Film Festival (online), New York, Jan. 27, 2021. Running time: 111 MIN.

• Production: A Vendôme Pictures production, in association with Pathé. Producers: Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, Patrick Wachsberger, Jérôme Seydoux. Executive producers: Ardavan Safaee, Sarah Borch-Jacobsen.
• Crew: Director, writer: Siân Heder. Camera: Paula Huidobro. Editor: Geraud Brisson. Music: Marius de Vries.
• With: Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Durant, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth, Kevin Chapman.

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CODA review: Tender coming-of-age Sundance drama earns its praise (and price)

This review initially ran out of the Sundance Film Festival in February 2021. CODA will be released Aug. 13 in theaters and on Apple TV+.

The Sundance Film Festival is still often a place for small unpolished gems. But CODA , which premiered there on Thursday night, is the kind of movie that seems to arrive fully formed — and has already been rewarded accordingly with by far the highest purchase price in Sundance history, $25 million by Apple TV+ . (Andy Samberg's existential rom-com Palm Springs set the record last year , with $17.5 million.)

Those staggering numbers seem at odds at first with the film's modest outlines — a classic coming-of-age tale, populated mostly by lesser-known actors and set in a small Massachusetts town. The charm in writer-director Sian Heder's breakout second feature is easy to find though, and much of it stems from the sweet specificity of her premise; British actress Emilia Jones (Netflix's Locke & Key ) stars as Ruby Rossi, the only hearing person in a deaf family.

The Rossis are a rowdy crew: Patriarch Frank (Troy Kotsur) and his grown son Leo (Daniel Durant), both tattooed brawlers, descend from a long line of local fishermen; they drink and smoke and make fart jokes, and when Frank's not on the boat, he's usually finding a way to have spectacularly noisy sex with his beloved wife, Jackie (Oscar winner Marlee Matlin ), a midlife sexpot in skinny jeans. Ruby rises every day at 3 a.m. to work alongside them, hauling in the daily catch before the sun is fully up. Then she pulls off her waders and heads to high school, where the mean girls make snide cracks about smelling fish when they pass her in the halls, and even her best friend Gertie (Amy Forsyth) can't understand why she wants to join something as deeply uncool as choir.

But music, which her family has no way of knowing — they can't hear her singing along to old Motown songs and Nina Simone while she works, or belting them out in her bedroom — is the thing that brings her the most joy.It also terrifies her though, so it takes a burgeoning crush on a classmate ( Sing Street 's Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) and the careful attentions of a teacher, Mr. Villalobos ( Eugenio Derbez ), to nudge her out of her skittish shell and closer toward the public performances she fears so much.

Heder, a writer and producer best known for her work on shows like Orange Is the New Black and Little America , never leaves any real doubt that Ruby will find her way when it comes to both first kisses and longer-range career plans. And CODA does often have the feel and scale less of big-screen moviemaking than of the television background she comes from, albeit expertly done (and with more than a few premium-cable profanities). But a handful of sitcom-ish moments seem like small glitches in a script that works so winningly to bring the often unseen (or just terminally under-explored) world of deafness to such joyful, ordinary life.

Jones — who trained intensively in voice work and American Sign Language for the role — has the gift of coming off like a genuine teenager, and more particularly a girl torn between her unique obligations to the people she loves and the bigger dreams she holds for herself. Matlin is great too, both tough and tenderhearted, though Durant and Kotsur deserve to be singled out for largely wordless performances that still convey so much in every scene: Anger, vulnerability, outrageous humor. Together, they somehow manage to make CODA feel like both the best and most familiar kind of family film, and one you've never quite seen before. Grade: B+

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‘Coda’: Patrick Stewart an anxious pianist in subtle story of empathy and ivory

Katie holmes co-stars as an interviewer who turns into sort of a muse..

Patrick Stewart plays a revered pianist who learns to trust a journalist (Katie Holmes) in “Coda.”

Gravitas Ventures

“Minimal prying, I promise.” – Music writer pitching a famed pianist to interview him for a profile piece.

Careful! If a journalist promises you an interview will involve “minimal prying,” expect considerable prying.

The regal Patrick Stewart is perfectly cast and delivers strong, carved-from-Shakespeare work as Sir Henry Cole, a legendary pianist battling stage fright late in his career in the somber and intellectual and quite lovely “Coda,” which has the subtle pacing and existential angst of a 1970s Scandinavian drama.

Katie Holmes — who knows a thing or two about being on the other side of intrusive media — is equally effective as Helen, a music journalist and lifelong fan of Henry’s who is determined to write the definitive piece about the great artist who has returned to the concert stage for the first time in years and is almost immediately regretting the decision.

At times you’ll feel as if you’re being metaphor’d to within an inch of your life. When the characters talk about flowers or a thousand-year-old rock or a magnificent gorilla in the Bronx Zoo, they’re never really talking about flowers or a rock or that big gorilla.

Even when the talk turns to baseball, the dialogue has a certain lofty lilt.

“Do you know the name of this team,” Henry says to a visitor as he watches a game on television. “They’re called … ‘the Orioles.’ I love that name.”

But “Coda” is a great-looking film, filled with dagger-sharp dialogue, wonderful performances and, as you’d expect, a wondrous and heavenly score, courtesy of Bach and Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert.

Stewart’s Henry Cole has embarked on a tour of the United States, with his loyal (if somewhat tone-deaf, so to speak) agent Paul (Giancarlo Esposito) pushing Henry every step of the way, downplaying Henry’s stage fright and courting press attention. (Henry’s journey eventually takes him to Switzerland and expands the visual scope to include some breathtakingly beautiful cinematography.)

“It’s just music, it’s not the Ten Commandments,” Paul says to Henry backstage after Henry says he’s not going back out there for the second half of a recital.

Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Paul. To Henry, these compositions ARE the Ten Commandments, and if he can’t honor them as he once did, he’s not sure he should try at all.

Holmes’ Helen, who dresses like Jackie Kennedy circa 1962 and had some talent of her own as a young pianist, is a writer for the New Yorker who shadows Henry from city to city, gradually gaining his trust and demonstrating a key journalistic skill — the ability to know when to sit back, shut up and LISTEN — as Henry waxes rhapsodic about such joys as being young and in love in Prague in the springtime.

As much as Henry comes to appreciate Helen’s interest and her shared passion for classical music, he becomes increasingly ill at ease about performing. He takes up smoking. He has to remind himself to take a breath when’s performing.

It’s Helen, of all people, who becomes a source of strength and comfort and encouragement to Henry. He literally won’t go onstage unless she’s there.

Helen came to study him and write about Henry — yes, she records most of their conversations, for after all, that’s why she’s here — but she also turns into a kind of muse/safety net.

Eventually, though, as much as Henry has come to lean on Helen, there are certain steps and certain late chapters in his story he must write on his own.

CODA Review

13 Aug 2021

If you were going to ask AI to come up with an identikit Sundance break-out hit, it might well be CODA . The winner of the festival’s 2021 US Grand Jury Prize: Drama (it subsequently sold to Apple TV for $25 million), writer-director Siân Heder’s film mixes up Sundance-favourite elements — family shenanigans, salty laughs, rough-hewn filmmaking, big dramatic beats, a feelgood ending — to winning, if not quite Little Miss Sunshine , effect. If it strays too close to the predictable, CODA tackles the realities of living with deafness with authenticity (the Deaf characters are played by non-hearing actors), empathy and heart.

The title is an acronym for Children Of Deaf Adults. The ‘child’ is Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones, who learnt American Sign Language for the role), an ostracised teen helping her Deaf father Frank (Troy Kotsur) and brother Leo (Daniel Durant) during hardscrabble days working in the family fishing business in Gloucester, Massachusetts. When we first meet Ruby she is singing gospel on board the boat and, joining a school choir, it transpires she has a beautiful singing voice, so much so that music teacher Bernardo (Eugenio Derbez) recommends she try out for the prestigious Berklee College of Music.

There is a palpable sense of the ways deafness can bring a family closer together.

Based on the 2014 French flick La Famille Bélier , CODA proffers a familiar dynamic of family commitment versus following your dream. Heder works wonders with the family part, creating a textured, vibrant and thoroughly likeable clan. Kotsur is an earthy but caring dad with a penchant for hard rap and bad jokes (“Why do farts smell?” “So Deaf people can enjoy them too”); Matlin as mom Jackie is not above guilt-tripping her daughter, but shares her fears about motherhood in an effective late-in-the-day scene; Durant as forever-on-Tinder brother Leo neatly evinces the frustrations of being older but less trusted than his kid sister. Scenes at the dinner table are lively, Heder making a fun use of signing-with-subtitles for comedic effect (“Twat Waffle” is a particular highlight) and there is a palpable sense of the ways deafness can bring a family closer together.

The film is on less convincing ground when it focuses on Ruby pursuing her dreams. Derbez’s Bernardo, Ruby’s music mentor, is an ersatz caricature, a well-tailored cardigan dropping one-liners and supporting-character lovability. The story beats are well worn here — will Ruby miss rehearsals over translating for her family? Will she fall for choir partner Miles ( Sing Street ’s Ferdia Walsh-Peelo)? — but you are carried along by Jones’ performance. She gives Ruby vulnerabilities, warmth and a spark to make you care for the character’s well-worn dilemmas, suggesting both the weight of responsibility she carries and her need to find her own place in the world. By the time she comes to the inevitable big sing-off, it’s a hard heart that isn’t moved by her performance, cinema’s biggest use of Joni Mitchell since Love Actually .

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Review: 'Coda' is an emotional powerhouse and one of the year's best movies

Here's the movie that restores the good name of the crowd-pleaser. You'll laugh, you'll cry and all steps in between at the funny, touching and vital "CODA," now in theaters and on Apple TV+. CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. It also represents the very best in family entertainment.

Having broken records with its $25 million sale at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, the Oscar-buzzy "CODA" also describes Ruby Rossi (breakout star Emilia Jones), a hearing Massachusetts high school student who lives with her mom (Marlee Matlin), dad (Troy Kotsur) and hotheaded brother (Daniel Durant), all deaf and all played by deaf actors.

Jones, a British acting and singing discovery, merges effortlessly into the role of an American teen growing up in a Gloucester fishing village. Ruby must, by necessity, act as an intermediary for her working-class family in the hearing world. The livelihood of her parents depends on it.

But what about Ruby's ambition to sing? When her choir teacher Bernardo Villalobos (a sweetly over-the-top Eugenio Derbez) urges her to try for a scholarship at Boston's competitive Berklee College of Music and pairs her with heartthrob duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from "Sing Street"), romance and career start intruding on her role as family point person.

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The movie has great fun with mom and dad's rowdy sex life, especially when they use it to embarrass shy Ruby when she dares to bring home a boy. But Jones is tender and tough when she needs to be to show why the bond holds despite tension between Ruby and her family.

Still, the acting triumphs of "CODA" belong to the trio of deaf actors at its core. Hollywood has traditionally cast non-deaf performers in such roles. In the 2014 French film, "La Famille Bélier," on which "CODA" is based, both parents were played by hearing actors. Not this time.

Matlin, who won an Oscar at 21 for 1986's "Children of a Lesser God" (she's still the only deaf actor to do so) had the clout to insist on representational casting. She's a sparking livewire as Jackie, the loyal mom with an edge who calls other town wives "hearing bitches" and resents Ruby's music ("If I was blind, would you want to paint?").

MORE: Review: 'In the Heights' pure unleashed joy grabs you and never lets go

Ruby's brother Leo (an explosive Durant) is even more disgruntled when Ruby steps in to negotiate the best price at the fish market since Leo feels, rightly, that outsiders need to learn how to cope with his deaf family without cheating them in the process.

As Frank, Ruby's raucous dad, Kotsur is hilarious and heartbreaking. In one scene, he asks Ruby to sing just for him, placing his hands on her throat to feel the vibrations of her vocal cords in his fingers as she sings the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell classic, "You're All I Need to Get By."

If that moment doesn't bring you to tears, an earlier one will have you reaching for a tissue as the sound drops out at a concert in Ruby's school and we understand what the Rossi clan experiences when the audience applauds a musical performance they can't hear or share.

Download the all new "Popcorn With Peter Travers " podcasts on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Tunein , Google Play Music and Stitcher .

All praise to hearing writer-director Sian Heder, who learned American Sign Language to communicate with actors who give their soulful all. Not just with hand gestures, body language and facial expressions, but with the rare ability to connect heart to heart. However you say it or sign it, "CODA" is an emotional powerhouse and one of the year's best movies.

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Coda - movie review.

Three words: grab the tissues.

Wearing its massive heart on its sleeve, CODA takes the spotlight as an unabashedly sweet film loaded with moments and performances that are sure to leave audiences feeling warm while also crying buckets of bittersweet tears. Sian Heder ’s new Sundance-award-sweeping film takes the familiar coming-of-age story and applies it to a unique and underrepresented community, making it a stand-out addition to the genre.

As she is the only hearing person in her family - a CODA: Child of Deaf Adults - high school senior, Ruby Rossi ( Emilia Jones ), has spent her life assisting her family in their fishing business and interpreting for them whenever needed. As far as she is concerned, that is how she will spend the rest of her life. But while in school one day, she chooses to join choir, where she quickly learns through the relentless encouragement of Mr. V ( Eugenio Derbez ) that she possesses a beautiful, natural singing ability that could land her into a renowned performing arts college, if she is willing to put in the work. 

By participating in both after-school work with Mr. V to prepare for her audition and the mandatory rehearsals with duet-partner and love-interest, Miles ( Ferdia Walsh-Peelo ), Ruby realizes her passion lies in music, but she cannot escape the pull of guilt she feels from her family. When her passion and her familial obligations start colliding, Ruby struggles with how to follow her dream without hurting her family and even herself.

Though this film has put Ruby’s musical dreams at the forefront, the most impactful element of the story is the complicated relationship that Ruby shares with her family, played by Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant , and Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin . Scenes with her family serve as points of worry, hilarious embarrassment, frustration, but they eventually evolve into moments of cathartic tenderness that are sure to cue the waterworks. Honestly, the entire last act of the film will leave you sobbing as Ruby finds unique ways in which she can connect her family to her singing. Though the Rossi family may never fully be able to comprehend Ruby’s dream, in their own way they do…which is what makes this film special in its own right.

The predictability of the film is nothing of concern because it could not have worked any other way. At the end of the day, it is a story that is sure to resonate with much of its audience. Though we are only a little over halfway through 2021… CODA is indisputably the feel-good film of the year.

CODA is now playing in select theaters and on AppleTV+ .

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for strong sexual content and language, and drug use. Runtime: 111 mins Director : Sian Heder Writer: Sian Heder Cast: Emilia Jones; Marlee Matlin; Troy Kotsur Genre : Drama Tagline: An Apple Original Film. Memorable Movie Quote: "You know why God made farts smell? So deaf people could enjoy them too." Theatrical Distributor: Apple TV Official Site: Release Date: August 13, 2021 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: Synopsis : Seventeen-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the sole hearing member of a deaf family—a CODA, child of deaf adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur) and working on the family's struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and soon finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams.

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Get ready for ‘CODA,’ the feel-good movie that will emotionally destroy you

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My first review of “CODA,” Siân Heder’s sublime coming-of-age story of a child of Deaf adults (the film’s title is that very acronym), came right after watching it on the opening night of this year’s virtual Sundance Film Festival and consisted of a message sent to a colleague containing the sobbing emoji repeated three times.

Having had the chance to revisit the movie several months later, that review seems insufficient. “CODA” warrants at least half a dozen sobbing emojis, followed by a dozen hearts and a couple of bouquets of flowers and, I don’t know, maybe a peach and an eggplant (or whatever the kids use these days) for the number of times the movie emphasizes the parents’ spectacularly healthy sex life.

But as you’re reading this, you might be interested in ... I don’t know ... words. So let me say that “CODA” contains a great many elements familiar to this kind of movie. It’s about a restless teenager trying to break free from her parents’ expectations, helped along by an inspirational teacher, putting her on the path to a tense, make-or-break musical audition that’s followed by an emotional catharsis that will wound even the most hardened soul.

But because Heder — whose previous work includes the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and “Glow” and feature “Tallulah” — is so adept at establishing the emotional bonds between the film’s close-knit family, the presence of all these conventions doesn’t matter. Much. You might find yourself in the film’s final 20 minutes begging for mercy as the story careens from a heart-to-heart talk between mother and daughter to a beautiful moment between father and daughter to the use of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” in a way that literally embodies the lyrics “tears and fears and feeling proud / To say, ‘I love you’ right out loud.” But you will not mind because Heder has earned the right to destroy you emotionally.

“CODA” focuses on Ruby (Emilia Jones), a high school senior in Gloucester, Mass., who wakes up before the sun rises so she can help her father (Troy Kotsur) and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) on the family fishing boat before heading to school to fall asleep at her desk and endure taunts that she smells like haddock. Ruby is the only hearing person in her family, which puts the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, whether negotiating the price for the fish they catch or translating to her parents the doctor’s diagnosis as to why their private parts feel like they’re on fire. ( Marlee Matlin plays the mom, and she and Kotsur possess the kind of harmony that deserves its own movie.)

Ruby loves singing and she’s good enough that her choir teacher, Bernardo (Eugenio Derbez), offers to train her so she can audition for the for the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Bernardo, or, should I say — as he does — Ber-narrrrrdo (if you can’t roll your Rs, just call him Mr. V) also pairs Ruby with the cute boy (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) she’s been crushing on for a duet of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By.” It pretty much guarantees that they’ll fall in love because, singing that song, how could they not?

The other certainty is that Ruby’s desire to leave home and pursue her dreams will conflict with her family’s need for her to stick around and help. One thing that separates “CODA” from every other coming-of-age movie is the way that Heder seamlessly moves between speaking and American Sign Language in the family scenes. The signing is subtitled, rather than translated, highlighting its vibrancy as a form of communication. And because we see mother, father, sister and brother communicating with this energy and intimacy, our understanding of the family — its dynamics, the love they share and what’s at stake if Ruby leaves — is heightened.

That means you care about these people — a lot. Which leads to the aforementioned waterworks when Ruby, played by British actress Jones with an authenticity that captures the character’s sensitivity and youthful impulsiveness, sets out on the final part of one journey so that she can begin another.

As Joni’s song puts it: Something’s lost, but something’s gained. Have some tissue handy.

The Deaf still face ‘outright discrimination’ in Hollywood. How ‘CODA’ broke the mold

Groundbreaking Sundance hit “CODA” created a space for Deaf actors on-set and made the environment accessible for all.

Aug. 13, 2021

'CODA'

Rating: PG-13, for strong sexual content and language, drug use Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes Playing: Starts Aug. 13 in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV+

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Common Sense Media Review

Dull drama about pianist has mature themes, language.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Coda is an indie drama about a famously talented musician suffering from self-doubt after a long illustrious career, and a younger female journalist who wants to write his story. The movie builds their relationship as it follows the pianist through both personal and career crises…

Why Age 13+?

One use each of: "f--k off," "crap," "s--t," "fecal matter."

Moderate alcohol use in social situations and smoking.

Any Positive Content?

Promotes moving forward after grief, making the most of artistic gifts, finding

Gifted pianist struggles with insecurity, recovers confidence, belief in himself

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Promotes moving forward after grief, making the most of artistic gifts, finding strength in company of others.

Positive Role Models

Gifted pianist struggles with insecurity, recovers confidence, belief in himself; he's honest, thoughtful, compassionate. Ethnic diversity.

Parents need to know that Coda is an indie drama about a famously talented musician suffering from self-doubt after a long illustrious career, and a younger female journalist who wants to write his story. The movie builds their relationship as it follows the pianist through both personal and career crises. There's moderate alcohol use in social situations, and smoking. Other than a very few instances of profanity ("f--k off," "s--t"), there's nothing objectionable for teens. It deals with mature themes, however, and the subject matter may not be of interest to most. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

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What's the Story?

CODA opens as internationally celebrated pianist Henry Cole ( Patrick Stewart ) performs in New York City for the first time after a long hiatus. It's a sold-out concert, and though Henry makes it to the end, it's almost more than he can handle. He's shaken, suffering from stage fright and a crushing loss of faith in himself. Though his agent, Paul ( Giancarlo Esposito ), tries to bolster Henry's fragile ego, the artist isn't sure he can continue his upcoming tour. When he's introduced to New Yorker writer Helen Morrison ( Katie Holmes ), he turns down her appeal for a profile in the respected magazine. But Helen doesn't give up easily. She gracefully but forcefully refuses to take no for an answer, and a tentative relationship begins.

Is It Any Good?

This tender study of an intense musical genius, whose career and inner life are resurrected by an idealistic young writer, is slow going and lacks energy in spite of solid performances. What was probably conceived of as a "leisurely" pace is, instead, slow, listless, and repetitive. It doesn't help that the filmmakers have devoted a great number of scenes to Henry alone, remembering, pondering, reflecting, and grieving. In addition, time and place are adrift. Scenes in Switzerland -- both present and past -- though beautifully shot, are intercut with scenes in New York, Boston, London -- present, past, and future. It's often difficult to identify the where and the when. Profound connections and bonds are hard to come by, and though Coda tries to share a lovely example of such a relationship, it's simply too thin and spiritless.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the term "character-driven film." How does Coda fit that description? What moves the story forward: A series of events? Or does it rely on personal emotions and/or behavior? Categorize some of your other film favorites. Are they action driven, plot driven, or character driven? Which do you usually like best, and why?

How does Coda's musical score contribute to the tone and storytelling? Why do you think the filmmakers opted for a solo piano throughout?

Which of Helen's character strengths helped Henry through his crisis? Though he was older, more accomplished, and more experienced, in what ways did she become his mentor?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : February 1, 2020
• Cast : Patrick Stewart , Katie Holmes , Giancarlo Esposito
• Director : Claude Lalonde
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
• Studio : Gravitas Ventures
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Arts and Dance , Friendship
• Run time : 96 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : June 20, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A famous pianist struggling with stage fright late in his career finds inspiration with a free-spirited music critic. A famous pianist struggling with stage fright late in his career finds inspiration with a free-spirited music critic. A famous pianist struggling with stage fright late in his career finds inspiration with a free-spirited music critic.

• Claude Lalonde
• Louis Godbout
• Patrick Stewart
• Katie Holmes
• Giancarlo Esposito
• 44 User reviews
• 26 Critic reviews

Top cast 29

• Helen Morrison

• Third Reporter

• Photographer
• (as Victor Andres Trelles Turgeon)

• (as Laetitia Brookes)

• First Reporter

• Singer Baryton

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Patrick Stewart had a body double for the close up shots of him playing piano since he has bad arthritis.

[opening lines]

[voiceover]

Helen Morrison : Nietzsche famously said that without music, life would be a mistake. German philosophers tend to exaggerate. But he did have a point. I know that without music my own life would've been incomplete in some fundamental way. Like if I'd had no friends or no memories. I even tried to be a pianist for a while until I realized just how fragile piano playing really is. Especially in front of 2,000 people.

• Crazy credits Christoph Gaugler is credited twice as Felix, as the main cast as well as supporting cast.
• Connections Referenced in Front Row Flynn: CODA: Sir Patrick Stewart, Louis Godbout, moderator Christian Meoli (2020)
• Soundtracks You Put Spice Into My Life Performed by Dale Chafin Produced by Eddie Caldwell

User reviews 44

• Mar 3, 2023
• How long is Coda? Powered by Alexa
• Why does Patrick Stewart pull up one sock at the end of the movie? Is it to ride his bike?
• Who plays the piano music heard in the film?
• February 1, 2020 (United States)
• Life with Music
• Maison symphonique, Place des Arts, Montréal, Québec, Canada (Concert hall)
• 1976 Productions
• Clinamen Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• CA$2,800,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 36 minutes

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‘the room next door’ review: tilda swinton and julianne moore save pedro almodóvar’s uneven english-language feature debut.

A woman with terminal cancer asks a complicated favor of an old friend in this adaptation of a Sigrid Nunez novel, also featuring John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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'stranger eyes' review: a slippery, well-acted singaporean thriller about observation and surveillance, 'of dogs and men' review: a thoughtful and quietly powerful israeli docudrama explores the aftermath of oct. 7, the room next door.

In The Room Next Door , melodrama and theatricality are tamped down, resulting in a very measured drama about life, death and the responsibilities of friendship that at times risks becoming an arid intellectual exercise. Without two such accomplished lead actors, it’s doubtful this would work at all.

What does work right from the start is the director’s customary attention to visual detail, to the ways that spatial lines, symmetry and especially color can give shape to his characters’ inner lives. Only in an Almodóvar movie might you find a hospital patient dressed in dazzling shades of firetruck red and azure and magenta. (Bina Daigeler did the eye-catching costumes.)

Production designer Inbal Weinberg makes every meticulously dressed interior a distinctive frame in which to observe the two women protagonists. But it’s when the story leaves Manhattan and heads to a luxury modernist rental near Woodstock that it starts acquiring emotional vitality.

Tucked away in a woodsy setting, that house is an architectural delight, a cluster of what look like cubic boxes in wood and glass almost inviting us to arrange and unpack them, while freeing up the movie to do the same with its characters.

Moore plays successful writer Ingrid, signing books at a Rizzoli author event when she learns that her friend Martha (Swinton) has been hospitalized with cancer. The two women worked together decades ago at Paper magazine but have fallen out of touch in more recent times, partly because Martha’s work as a New York Times war correspondent kept her on the move.

The awkwardness of semi-estrangement melts away instantly when Ingrid visits the hospital and Martha explains that she’s agreed to be a guinea pig in an experimental treatment for her Stage 3 cervical cancer.

Unfortunately, she then launches into a lengthy background recap that feels almost as if Swinton is reading book excerpts off cue cards. Also, much of the information Martha shares would surely be familiar to Ingrid because it predates their time as magazine colleagues. It’s in this opening stretch in particular that you might wish Almodóvar had worked with a co-writer able to loosen up the English dialogue and make it more fluid.

The same goes for Ingrid’s discussion, when they meet up again outside the hospital, of her next book project, a semi-fictionalized account of the unconventional love story between Bloomsbury Group figures Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey, who was gay. Martha responds by recalling her one, unpublished foray into fiction with a different queer romance, inspired by two Spanish Carmelite missionaries she met in Baghdad.

Digressions into other people’s stories are a part of Nunez’s book, but here they just seem to be stalling for time before Martha makes the request of Ingrid that we can clearly see coming.

She explains that the treatments have failed and the cancer has spread, admitting that war was as much an adrenaline rush as a horror but she’s no stoic when it comes to pain: “I think I deserve a good death.” Martha has gotten hold of an illegal euthanasia pill and says she’s been ready to go since her first diagnosis. But she wants a friend to be in the next room when she takes it, flinching at the thought of a stranger finding her body. And she wants to do it in a place where she has no history.

While Martha has planned carefully to ensure that Ingrid won’t be implicated, Swinton, who has made herself look gaunt and hollow-eyed for the role, is unafraid to make the character appear selfish and insensitive to the emotional burden she has placed on her friend. Even so, there’s relatively little conflict in their time together.

Given Martha’s decisiveness, there’s no will-she-or-won’t-she tension, though that’s not something that interests Almodóvar. Nor is any morality debate around the right-to-die issue — even if the director is clearly in favor of legal euthanasia access. But there’s a cumulative satisfaction in watching two infinitely compelling actresses play women negotiating questions large and small. And there’s a sad beauty in the finality of Martha’s decision.

Swinton and Moore imbue the movie with heart that at first seems elusive, along with the dignity, humanity and empathy that are as much Almodóvar’s subjects here as mortality. What ultimately makes the movie affecting is its appreciation for the consolation of companionship during the most isolating time of life.

The movie feels sometimes subdued to a fault and could have used a few more notes of gallows humor to vary the tone, but it benefits enormously in terms of emotionality from the luxuriant carpeting of Alberto Iglesias’ score. Grau’s sedate camerawork has a contrasting calming effect, suggesting peace for Martha and sorrowful acceptance for Ingrid. The production appears to have shot mostly in Spain with just second unit work in Manhattan, but it captures an idea of New York, if not much sense of place.

One of the most satisfying touches, injecting resonant feeling into the final moments, is a passage lifted from James Joyce’s novel and John Huston’s film of The Dead , providing a poetic coda.

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