Coda opens with a sense of expansiveness: all ocean and sky until the camera pushes in to reveal a fishing boat in the distance. On this fishing boat, Ruby sings with abandon as she helps her father, Frank, and brother, Leo, bring in the morning’s catch before school.
Frank and Leo, both deaf, can’t hear her strong voice. Thus, the film’s opening provides us with a glimpse of what is to come as Ruby’s passion for music will clash with her desire to support her family’s fishing business as their de facto interpreter.
In many ways, Coda is a refreshing coming-of-age film showing authentic teenage lives and the universal struggle of an adolescent pushing toward adulthood. But this film is also so much more than that. It is a film about family, and it is a film about deaf culture and ableism. However, its power lies in its ability to be all of these things without ever being preachy or feeling forced. We are pulled into this family’s world beautifully and effectively and find ourselves wanting to a part of it.
Yes, Ruby’s story arc is predictable. Very early on I could see where it was going, but the immersive world writer/director Sian Heder creates is one I wanted to be inside of anyway. I wanted to see Ruby’s story through to the end because Heder stretches beyond stereotypes and expectations. She gives us an entire family to love, and we do grow to love them. Each of Ruby’s family members are fully thought out and developed characters, rather than simply stereotypes or tropes.
Yes, Ruby’s family members are deaf, but this difference is not on display. It is not something we are ‘learning’ about. Instead, it is something that is organically portrayed because it is one piece of who they each are. Yes, Frank is deaf, but he is also a third-generation Gloucester fisherman with his own boat and the economic strains that come with that. He is a man who speaks his mind. He is a man deeply in love with his wife, literally, unable to control himself when it comes to his desire for her. He is a father who wants what is best for his children. He is a man who loves gangster rap. He is caught between his desire to keep his child safe and near him and his desire to see her spread her wings and thrive, away from him, with her own life and passions.
It is the richness of the characters in the film that provides us with an entree into Ruby’s life and into the complexity of the situation that she faces as her parents' primary (and sole) interpreter.
Plus, there is the music, which is almost another character in the film. Music is Ruby’s passion, a passion that it is hard for her family to participate in and understand. As such, music is pivotal to the film and is skillfully employed. There is no score for the film, but rather a soundtrack that moves through the film in organic ways. When Ruby plays music, we hear that music. When her family’s POV is brought into focus, the music disappears.
This mechanism is most artfully employed at Ruby’s Fall Choir Concert where we experience the ways in which the domination of hearing culture creates an experience that completely leaves her family out. They can’t hear the music being performed. There are no interpreters present. The event is hard for them to follow and appreciate. They can only assess Ruby’s performance by the responses of those around them, which makes it evident that Ruby can sing and that people are moved by her performance.
The uncomfortable choir concert is followed by one of the most beautiful scenes in the film. In this scene, Ruby and her father sit in the bed of his truck and he asks her to sing the song from the concert again, for him. She faces him and signs the song as she sings. He places his hands on her neck to feel the music, the vibrations. There is an intimacy and beauty to the scene that is hard to capture on film. We feel their closeness. We feel their love. We understand their ability to communicate and connect. We experience that with them, through them.
Such poignant moments are balanced with joy and humor. The amount of humor in the film was unexpected and lovely. Sometimes it arrives through Ruby’s role as an interpreter in situations that are awkward or uncomfortable, like her parent’s doctor’s appointment where they are diagnosed with jock itch and advised not to have sex. At other times it comes through prototypical teen experiences like her father’s talk with Miles about safe sex after Ruby’s parents interrupt their duet practice by having very loud sex (unaware that Ruby and Miles are in the house).
Parents embarrass their teenage children. That is universal. And so is sibling strain. In Ruby and Leo’s case, that strain is exacerbated by her ability to hear and by the role of interpreter she’s played her whole life, a role that Leo sees as giving her more power than him, a role that makes him the baby of the film, despite being the older sibling.
When Ruby tries to put the family’s needs before her own desire (music school), her brother delivers a powerful monologue in which he points out her ableism in regards to her own family, who is trying to get their fish cooperative off the ground. She insists that they need her for her ability to interface with the hearing public, but Leo pushes back “Let them figure out how to deal with deaf people,” he insists, asserting powerfully, “we’re not helpless.”
This is one of the many messages we, as viewers, are encouraged to take from the film, which shows us, deftly, that spaces and institutions are not inclusive and accessible while also reminding us that we each have power and agency with regards to our own lives.
Coda shows a family at odds at times, but also full of love for one another. A family that wants to be connected, that wants to see each individual in it thrive, a family that is hard to find in media representations today. Ruby’s family is a family that we all need to see and celebrate.
Coda would make a fine addition to any disability studies collection, especially those with a focus on deaf culture.