Post by Dracula on Nov 21, 2021 14:58:04 GMT -5
CODA(11/5/2021)
The film CODA famous sold at Sundance to Apple for a record setting $25 million dollars and it’s not hard to see why. The film has exactly the lovable “little movie that could” feel that we’ve come to expect from other feel-good Sundance pickups like Little Miss Sunshine or The Kids are All Right or Minari, but when it was finally released it was never really able to work up that same word of mouth audience or sport impressive box office figures because it went straight to a not terribly popular streaming service and never really had that narrative. That’s unfortunate because as these things go CODA is pretty good. The title is an abbreviation which stands for “Child of Deaf Adults” and the film focuses on a teenage girl who, as that would imply, is the only hearing member of a deaf family. That can be a rather stressful position for this girl because, in addition to all the normal teenage stresses she needs to act as an almost full time interpreter for her parents while also helping them in their family business (they’re fishermen). To make things even more awkward this girl is a bit of a music buff and aspires to be a singer, which is a hobby she can’t really share with her family at all. Emilia Jones has a pretty difficult role as the film’s star as she needed to learn sign language for the role (large portions of the film are in ASL), fake an American accent (she’s British), and also do some pretty impressive singing during the performance segments. The deaf actors here are also pretty strong, especially Troy Kotsur as the father. Glamourous Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin is perhaps a bit miscast here as a fisherman’s wife but still does a decent job giving her character nuance. Overall it’s not exactly a movie that’s breaking the coming of age movie mold outside of the deafness angle, but it does manage to stay just on the right side of corny for most of its runtime, crossing that line only in its finale.
***1/2 out of Five
The film CODA famous sold at Sundance to Apple for a record setting $25 million dollars and it’s not hard to see why. The film has exactly the lovable “little movie that could” feel that we’ve come to expect from other feel-good Sundance pickups like Little Miss Sunshine or The Kids are All Right or Minari, but when it was finally released it was never really able to work up that same word of mouth audience or sport impressive box office figures because it went straight to a not terribly popular streaming service and never really had that narrative. That’s unfortunate because as these things go CODA is pretty good. The title is an abbreviation which stands for “Child of Deaf Adults” and the film focuses on a teenage girl who, as that would imply, is the only hearing member of a deaf family. That can be a rather stressful position for this girl because, in addition to all the normal teenage stresses she needs to act as an almost full time interpreter for her parents while also helping them in their family business (they’re fishermen). To make things even more awkward this girl is a bit of a music buff and aspires to be a singer, which is a hobby she can’t really share with her family at all. Emilia Jones has a pretty difficult role as the film’s star as she needed to learn sign language for the role (large portions of the film are in ASL), fake an American accent (she’s British), and also do some pretty impressive singing during the performance segments. The deaf actors here are also pretty strong, especially Troy Kotsur as the father. Glamourous Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin is perhaps a bit miscast here as a fisherman’s wife but still does a decent job giving her character nuance. Overall it’s not exactly a movie that’s breaking the coming of age movie mold outside of the deafness angle, but it does manage to stay just on the right side of corny for most of its runtime, crossing that line only in its finale.
***1/2 out of Five
