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‘coda’: film review | sundance 2021.

Sian Heder's film revolves around the tensions that arise when the sole hearing member of a deaf family discovers she has a talent for singing.

By Jon Frosch

Senior Editor, Reviews

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CODA

There are films that upend conventions and subvert expectations. And there are those that lean into them — hard. CODA , a U.S. remake of 2014 French dramedy La famille Bélier , about the sole hearing member of a deaf family who discovers she’s a gifted singer, is of the latter ilk. Even with its unusual premise (CODA is an acronym for “child of deaf adults”) and the representational novelty of three out of four leads being deaf — a notable difference from the original — the movie hardly feels like uncharted territory. CODA faithfully works its way through a checklist of tropes from high school comedies, disability dramas, musical-prodigy and inspiring-teacher narratives, coming-of-age tales about young people struggling to declare independence from overbearing families and indie chronicles of blue-collar America.

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But if you’re going to make a film that sticks to the playbook, or playbooks, this is how to do it: CODA is a radiant, deeply satisfying heartwarmer that more than embraces formula; it locates the pleasure and pureness in it, reminding us of the comforting, even cathartic, gratifications of a feel-good story well told.

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition)

Cast: Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Daniel Durant, Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth

Writer-director: Sian Heder

That’s not to say the film offers nothing new. CODA ‘s focus on the fraught ties between deaf and hearing communities gives it a foundation of freshness. But one of writer-director Sian Heder’s most impressive feats is how shrewdly she handles the more familiar elements. Though all the expected plot points are present and accounted for — the school concert and conservatory audition, the first kiss, fights and heart-to-hearts — the filmmaker (whose debut feature, Tallulah , premiered at Sundance 2016) stages them with uncommon delicacy, flaunting a finely tuned sense of when to push, how much and when to pull back. You may roll your eyes. More likely, you’ll be wiping them.

Revolving around 17-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) and the tensions that arise when her passion for music pulls her away from her deaf parents and brother, CODA at times teeters toward unwieldiness. There’s a lot of plot, and tones that should, in theory, clash. (Think a deaf spin on Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace and Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty , passed through a John Hughes filter, or tossed into a blender with recent Netflix teen movies like The Half of It .) But the unfussy warmth and feeling of the performances and direction should overcome even the staunchest resistance. CODA is an honest crowd-pleaser — one that gently charms, rather than claws or cloys, its way under your skin. It deserves every happy-tear it wrings.

Ruby Rossi lives with mom Jackie ( Marlee Matlin ), dad Frank (Troy Kotsur) and big brother Leo (Daniel Durant) — all three deaf — in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she toggles tirelessly between school and her job as a deck hand on the family’s fishing boat. Though her ability to hear sets her apart from her parents and sibling, the four function as a unit; Ruby has been communicating in ASL since before she could speak, and acts as an interpreter for the other Rossis — their liaison to the hearing world.

Working from her own adapted screenplay, Heder establishes the dynamic between Ruby and her family — the push-pull of affection and aggravation, the blurring line between closeness and codependency — in a few crisp, inviting early scenes. CODA centers Ruby’s experience: We see her wince at the casual cacophony of a deaf household — the clanging pots and pans, the constant brrring of an un-silenced smartphone and, amusingly for those who appreciate an innocuous bit of scatological humor, an instance of unchecked flatulence. Yet Heder makes ample space in her frames for Jackie, Frank and Leo, too, catching their reactions and capturing their personalities. She brings this fractious but loving quartet, with their vibrant crisscross of signing, teasing and testiness, to vividly appealing life.

One day at school, Ruby sees her crush, popular Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), signing up for choir. Ruby also likes to sing — the opening scene finds her belting Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” as she works on the boat — so before long, she’s there alongside Miles, blossoming under the tutelage of demanding conductor Mr. V (Eugenio Derbez). Ruby’s so good, in fact, that Mr. V urges her to apply to Boston’s selective Berklee College of Music.

With his diva-ish antics (“I’m in a mood!” he snaps at the start of the first class) and tough-love quips, Mr. V is an unabashed caricature, and seasoned scenery-chomper Derbez at times seems to be acting in a different, more overtly sitcom-ish movie. (A running gag about Jackie and Frank’s off-the-charts sex life is similarly incongruous in its broadness.) But Heder keeps the choir scenes short, snappy and refreshingly free of earnest, Glee -style vocal histrionics; the kids’ voices are lovely in an everyday, not Broadway-brassy, kind of way (several are played by members of Berklee’s a cappella group).

The film’s primary interest is the aching distance that opens up between Ruby and her family as she nurtures her talent and contemplates a future beyond home. The conflict is partly logistical: As a hearing person, Ruby is a key component of the Rossis’ just-launched fish sales business; they literally may not be able to afford for her to go away to college. It also, of course, runs deeper than that. Music is something Ruby’s family can’t fully appreciate, and Jackie, in particular, feels that exclusion acutely (“If I was blind, would you want to paint?” she asks her daughter).

With a light touch and lived-in sensitivity, Heder and her cast conjure the storm of mixed emotions set off by Ruby’s singing: Ruby’s unconditional devotion to her family but also her resentment at never having been able to put herself first, and her guilt about doing so for the first time; her parents’ hurt commingled with pride in their daughter and yearning for her happiness; Leo’s seething frustration, his sense that he’s considered less important to the family’s well-being than his sister.

Heder has a low-key visual style, but knows how to turn up the pressure. The Rossis’ arguments are expertly choreographed and performed, the foursome’s expressions and gestures alive with long-pent-up anxieties and a fierce, protective love. Crucially, the filmmaker also keeps things moving, never lingering on dramatic scenes or pumping them up with unearned sentiment. This thoughtful underplaying of major moments extends both to Ruby’s budding romance with Miles, which unfolds with restrained sweetness, and to the big spring choir concert. Instead of delivering the usual bring-down-the-house climax, Heder considers the experience from the perspective of each family member, shifting seamlessly among them to create a mini roller coaster of apprehension, awkwardness, relief and delight. (She saves the real release for Ruby’s Berklee audition — a scene that turned this critic, who doesn’t cry easily at the movies, into a puddle.)

Though I can’t judge the authenticity of the film’s portrayal of majority-deaf families ( CODA clearly isn’t aiming for the realism of last year’s Sound of Metal , for example), the vitality and conviction of the lead turns are undeniable. Jones (Netflix’s Locke & Key ) acts and sings with a captivating directness — her voice is rich, melodic and natural-sounding — that feels apt for an adolescent who has long shouldered the responsibilities of adulthood. But she’s also subtle, suggesting an entire palette of moods in a character who’s never had the luxury of indulging them. It’s an intuitive, unshowy powerhouse of a performance.

The other principals are equally superb in economically but deftly drawn roles. With his long face, lanky frame and teasing eyes, Kotsur’s Frank is the family clown. But there’s more than a hint of ruefulness in his goofing around, and the actor has a moment of breathtaking sincerity toward the end of the film. He’s well matched with Matlin, summoning her customary spark, sensuality and nuance as a former model who has to work to connect with her no-frills daughter. And Durant brings a simmering, heartthrobby soulfulness to the restless Leo. (There’s a great, sneakily swoony scene in which Leo and Ruby’s best friend flirt at a bar, texting each other as a workaround for their communication barrier.)

Marius De Vries’ score is discreet and sparingly deployed, never overshadowing the singing by Ruby, Miles and the choir. And if a movie is going to feature multiple rehearsal scenes, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By” and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” are pretty unbeatable song choices. It’s no small compliment to say that CODA is worthy of them.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition) Production companies: Vendome Pictures, Pathé Films, Picture Perfect Federation Cast: Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Daniel Durant, Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth Writer-director: Sian Heder Producers: Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, Patrick Wachsberger Executive producer: Sarah Borch-Jacobson Director of photography: Paula Huidobro Production designer: Diane Lederman Costume designer: Brenda Abbandandolo Editor: Geraud Brisson Composer: Marius De Vries Casting: Deborah Aquila, Tricia Wood, Lisa Zagoria Sales: ICM Partners, CAA

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Emilia Jones in Coda

Coda review – formulaic yet sweet-natured crowd-pleaser

A hearing girl with a deaf family is torn between two worlds in a well-intentioned but conventional attempt to win over audiences

T here’s an earnest old-fashioned Sundance-ness to writer-director Sian Heder’s broad comedy-drama Coda , the kind of warm-hearted crowd-pleaser that the festival is most widely known for. In any normal year, it would probably have been met with audible approval throughout its premiere. But this isn’t a normal year, with the majority of festival goers watching the film at home, perhaps less pumped up by the thrill of seeing it with a crowd. With or without an audience, it’s a minor film, a little too formulaic at times, a tad too comfortable sticking to a dog-eared playbook, eager to be loved but not really trying hard enough to be remembered.

Ruby (Brit Emilia Jones, boasting a pitch perfect American accent) is a Coda – a child of deaf adults – who helps her family fishing business while struggling to stay ahead at high school. Her mother (Marlee Matlin), father (Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant) need her to translate, and so she’s required to be in five places at once, ensuring her brother isn’t getting ripped off before helping her parents understand an awkward medical diagnosis. But when Ruby decides to join the school choir (to be closer to a crush), she realises that singing is a passion she wants to pursue outside just her bedroom, sparking the interest of her music teacher and the ire of her family.

Pleasantly ambling along, hitting every beat one would expect, there’s plenty to like here but nothing to really make it stand out from the crowd, filled with films ever so slightly similar (Coda itself is a remake of French movie La Famille Bélier ). Despite the grit of the Massachusetts setting and the earthy way in which Heder chooses to shoot it, Coda firmly takes place in Movie Universe, where a great deal of the action and dialogue isn’t rooted in enough of a recognisable reality for it to have much of an impact. The plot, which contains an inspirational sassy music teacher, a burgeoning young romance, wacky horny parents, a big last act school concert and a big last act singing audition just feels a little too assembled, the end product resembling a generic, low-stakes Netflix teen movie rather than anything of much substance.

The differentiating factor, that Ruby’s family is deaf, does create some of the film’s more interesting situations, and gives us brief insight into an intriguing dynamic that’s been mostly unexplored (plus, we get to learn the sign language for “twat waffle”, which feels important). Depictions of deafness on screen are still incredibly rare and Heder (who made the equally sensitive yet far more effective Tallulah in 2016) handles the set-up with care, showing us the frustrations that are felt by both Ruby and her family, how communication can rapidly go from easy to impossible and how home becomes its own community, safe from judgment and misunderstanding. Jones is a winning, confident lead, believably plucky enough to stand up to the fishermen who denigrate and mistreat her family and a strong enough singer to sell her musical subplot. There’s a non-cloying sweetness to her YA romance scenes, helped largely by the decision to have her and crush tasked with a duet of You’re All I Need to Get By (a song that’s nicely used in a climactic scene with Ruby and her father too) and the aforementioned big concert sequence is smartly designed, allowing her parents to understand the effect her voice has on others.

Heder takes a few too many abrupt shortcuts with some of her plotting, forgetting some characters and shoving other key moments in a montage, with Ruby’s best friend and mother both introduced with gusto then confusingly sidelined and the rise of her family’s relaunched business happening with confusingly breakneck speed. These problems would perhaps be less distracting if Heder accepted that her film takes place in the realm of fantasy, the kind inhabited by Nicholas Sparks adaptations and Lifetime Christmas movies. But it takes itself a little too seriously for that to be the case, leaving it awkwardly stuck between both worlds, the rules it subscribes to not making sense in the structure of a grounded indie drama. Coda is a mostly likable concoction, but one that’s just too formulaic and ultimately rather calculated to secure the emotional response it so desperately wants by the big finale. A sweet but forgettable start to the festival.

Coda is screening at the Sundance film festival with a release date yet to be confirmed

  • Sundance 2021
  • First look review
  • Drama films
  • Comedy films

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Emilia Jones stands on a stage in a salmon sweater, arms crossed across her chest, smiling

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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

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[ 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.”

Emilia Jones leans out of a car to sign at the camera in CODA

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 .

Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, and Marlee Matlin applauding in an auditorium in 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.

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

VIDEO: What’s coming to the movies in 2021

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.

coda movie review

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.

coda movie review

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 Reviews

coda movie review

Coda refuses to rehash the well-worn tropes of this May-December subgenre, swapping it out for an almost Bergman-like contemplativeness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 20, 2023

coda movie review

CODA is a delight, a warm hug of a film that knows its genre and makes the very most of it. Siân Heder’s script is simple, and the message that she sends is heartfelt. A crowd-pleaser with love to spare.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2023

...weakening a film whose representation of the underrepresented is so intense at times that its dependence on Hallmark-like characteristics is more than mildly disappointing.

Full Review | Jul 27, 2023

coda movie review

A Must Watch Winner that will delight you

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

coda movie review

Siân Heder offers her impeccable direction and beautifully written screenplay, which is packed with emotionally powerful moments that left me tearing up for the last forty-five minutes.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 24, 2023

coda movie review

CODA is a simple, moving film with great performances.

Full Review | Jun 27, 2023

What so impressed me and makes this a movie I'd recommend is how writer and director Sian Heder used sound -- and the lack of sound -- to showcase the beauty and emotional power of music to connect with people.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2023

With one of the most clever scripts of the year, CODA made me feel a lot of feelings.

Full Review | Feb 10, 2023

coda movie review

"CODA is sweet, sincere and genuinely funny in parts, and it’s precisely the kind of coming-of-age film that we should hope to see more of. "

Full Review | Nov 19, 2022

coda movie review

...alternates between being contrived and genuinely moving.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 9, 2022

coda movie review

CODA is cathartic. A film that put a giant lump in your throat while at the same time lifting your spirits.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

coda movie review

It’s a movie about a cute kid who wants to go off to Fancy School in the City. The deafness is very much incidental.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 24, 2022

coda movie review

The humor makes for a great compliment to the coming-of-age drama which follows a pretty conventional blueprint but enhances it with a uniquely fresh perspective.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

coda movie review

Films like these highlight the differences and similarities and seek the bridge that gap as well as share a story of struggle, growth, and exploration. This film does all three magnificently and will bring audiences to tears.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2022

... The bones of The Belier Family are fleshed out in new, muscular ways by writer-director Sian Heder, working with deaf creative collaborators Anne Tomasetti and Alexandria Wailes.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2022

CODA works well to deliver effective drama, music and some comedy with character conflicts that are relatable.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2022

A foreseeable story that's adamant to be kind and only threat is sweetening the characters and the situations they go through, and makes it clear that the ending, too, will be conveniently happy. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 8, 2022

What hurts the most is the almost algorithmic…mechanisms of tabletop drama. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 12, 2022

coda movie review

A feel good triumph and standard coming of age narrative. The opportunities afforded the deaf cast are cause for celebration, even if their stories would have been more exciting to see compared to the familiar YA romance of the hearing protagonist

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 25, 2022

coda movie review

CODA is a classic story of intergenerational conflict spiced up with a culture clash narrative between the deaf and hearing communities. The execution is nearly flawless

Full Review | Apr 13, 2022