CODA

 

    Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant in “CODA.” Apple TV+ image via IMDB

So, once the world ends what's left to say?

That was the question I faced after last week's review of “Don't Look Up.” Despite setting a blog record for views with its A-list cast and director, the film's grin-and-bear-it version of cleverness takes a psychic toll. It didn't leave me feeling very energetic as I faced the still formidable mountain of DVDs left to view before casting my votes for the year's best film achievements.

Luckily Apple TV has the antidote.

It's called “CODA” and it's as uplifting as the last film was dispiriting. Granted there are tears involved – it's hard to even watch the trailer without puddling up – but they're the good kind.

Although the title sounds like an espionage or sci-fi thriller, it stands for Children of Deaf Adults. When Ruby (Emilia Jones) was born to Frank and Jackie Rossi (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin) she was unlike them or her older brother Leo (Daniel Durant). She could hear. This simple ability most of us take for granted sealed her fate in the family of Gloucester, Mass., commercial fishermen. Not only would she be an able deckhand by the time she was a teenager, but at a much earlier age she would be their interpreter, literally their ears and their voice, their interface with the world.

Not only can she talk – she can sing. The film opens with the Rossis bringing in a net full of fish, as Ruby wails along, doing the Etta James part in “Something's Got a Hold on Me.” 

Ruby's got a great voice. That turns out to be the problem in writer-director Sian Heder's fine adaptation of “La Familie Belier,” a French production that won numerous festival awards when it was released in 2014. Although most of “CODA's” producers are French, Heder's relocation of the story to her native Massachusetts is seamless. The American version has nabbed a huge number of nominations and festival wins on its own, including four wins at Sundance where it also landed the deal with Apple.

It's not her love of singing as much as a crush on high school classmate Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) that prompts Ruby to pick choir club as her elective after she sees him sign up. 

In the music room they will encounter Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), one of those colorful, inspiring mentors anyone would be fortunate to encounter in high school, or anywhere in their lives.

While Mr. V dismisses the obvious similarities to “Glee,” the music is a great addition to the rest of the emotional button pushing happening throughout “CODA.” 

It doesn't take long for singing's liberating effect on Ruby's soul to come into conflict with her familial obligations, especially after the Rossis start a fishermen's co-op to take on the fish brokers gouging them on the docks. It's a risky, high-stakes move on their shoestring budget that depends on their daughter in a key role. The plot twists are straight out of Screenwriting 101, but they work superbly, probably because of the rich vein of humanness the script and the performances tap into.

Actress Jones had to learn sign language, singing and how to operate a boat for her role. She manages them all, as they say in her English homeland, brilliantly. It's one of those breakout performances, but doesn't overshadow the superb, deftly directed ensemble. 

While “CODA” clicks off lots of boxes for political correctness and inclusion that Hollywood pays homage to at Oscar time, its strong suit turns out to be its earthy, bawdy sense of humor – overcoming the dual challenges of being delivered in sign language and subtitles.

Having won her Oscar as an ingenue and working steadily in the decades since, Matlin may have been the name that greenlighted this project. Her performance here is one of the most enjoyable in her long career, a nuanced blend of funny, touching and irritating – in other words, a mom. She's matched scene for scene by Kotsur as her husband, often hilarious and incredibly expressive as he signs an even broader range of emotions.

Like last year's “Sound of Metal,” “CODA” doesn't see deafness as a handicap, but as a card in the hand some people are dealt. It pales in comparison to the more universal challenges, demons and doubts deaf people have in common with people who can hear.

The ways we find to face those challenges can be paths to victory, as this funny, touching film reminds us in every frame.