CODA (2021) Written and directed by Sian Heder.

I was scrolling through lots of films I didn’t want to watch. CODA didn’t jump out but it was brilliant. One of those movies that leaves you feeling better about yourself. I later learned it won a Bafta for best script and best actor in 2021.

CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. It’s not something I think about. This is show, rather than tell.  Ruby Rossi works on a fishing boat off Gloucester, Massachusetts. Teenage girls don’t usually work on fishing boats. Women don’t usually work on fishing boats, period. She’s not only part of the crew, she’s on family business. Her older brother Leo is bringing in the catch. Her dad, Leo (best actor, Bafta winner) is captain. She sings along to a song on the radio, while (onscreen) she’s talking with her hands. For those of us that can’t read the American Sign Language there’s are subtitles so we understand. Out on the rivers she’s one of them. Onshore she interprets the hearing world for them.  

I was trying to think of the last film I watched that involved deaf people using sign language onscreen. Children of a Lesser God in the early eighties. The title explains a lot. Them and us (normal, hearing people). I was reminded of another film, which was also wonderful, Sound of Metal.  Perhaps using actors with deaf or hard of hearing problems and the themes it creates of duality is drama enough to make anything else a bonus.

But that would be demeaning. We all kinda know where the film is going. When Bernardo "Mr. V" Villalobos, the high school choir director asks Ruby why she sings, her answer in words along is feeble, but twinned with her actions and what it means in sign language it takes us to the stars. Beautiful. Go girl. Go.

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