CODA

CODA (2021) takes its title from an acronym: child of deaf adults. That definition is the whole film. Ruby is the only hearing member of a fishing family in Massachusetts. She hauls nets with her father at dawn and goes to choir class during the day. All of the family's contact with the outside world runs through her: the doctor, the buyer, the co-op meeting, everything. When she wants to go to music school the real question is whether she feels guilty for wanting it, or whether the family genuinely cannot function without her. What keeps the film upright is that the family's deafness is never presented as a tragedy. Ruby's parents and brother are funny, crude, sexually frank, and entirely at home in their own world. The deaf roles are played by deaf actors. Troy Kotsur won an Oscar for his and became the second deaf performer to do so after Marlee Matlin, who plays his wife here. It is a remake of the French film La Famille Bélier and it won Best Picture. It runs 112 minutes. Good for: family drama, coming of age, and music. Less good for: the road map is predictable and the sexual jokes are explicit.