Clearly, streaming platforms are now rulers of the visual world. While the originals from Netflix and Amazon have been winning prizes at movie festivals and the Oscars, Apple has now made a mark with its CODA. It took home the Best Picture Oscar on Sunday night beating Netflix’s The Power of the Dog, helmed by New Zealand’s Jane Campion.
CODA, which has a predominantly deaf cast, had one more feather on its cap: its star, Troy Kotsur, was honoured with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar – making him the second deaf actor after Marlee Matlin, who won for Children of Lesser God in 1986. Apple had more coming on the big night. It won three Oscars for Joel Cowen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
The awards were Apple’s first-ever victory at the Oscars, and the company reportedly spent $ 10 million on the CODA campaign. Netflix did not go back home empty-handed either; Campion got the Direction statuette.
CODA has a disarmingly simple story to tell. Rubi Rossi (played by Emilia Jones) is the child of deaf parents, and she is the only one who can hear. Even her brother, Leo (Daniel Durant), is deaf. The film – in which the parents are essayed by Kotsur and Matlin – is based on a 2014 French work, La Famille Belier.
When Ruby discovers she has a passion and talent for music, she finds herself torn between her duty toward her family and her own ambition.
CODA (abbreviation for Children of Deaf Adults), written and directed by Sian Heder, is extremely inspirational and has an old-world charm about it. Set in the fishing village of Gloucester, Rubi’s family lives off the everyday catch, and we first see her on a fishing schooner with her father, Frank (Kotsur), and brother, Leo, hauling a huge net of fish from the sea. They toss different kinds of fish in separate boxes, and standing under the glinting sun in their orange suits, they make a picture-perfect family.
In high school, Rubi signs up for the Choir class, not so much for the music as it is to be near her boyfriend, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). But when the choirmaster, a Frenchman, notices her talent, he begins to encourage her, pushing her to do better. The teacher asks her and Miles to perform at the Fall concert – to sing a duet of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By”.
When the duo wins accolades, the master urges Rubi to apply for a place at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and with Frank and Leo trying to unite their fishing community into a union to stop being exploited, things come to a head. Rubi is the only person who can help her parents and brother communicate with the would-be-exploiters. Will her departure hit her family’s livelihood?
We know how CODA would end, and we are also aware of how selfish a family could be. Beyond this, the film is a marvellous experiment in getting together a cast of deaf actors and pitting them against Rubi, who can hear and speak. There is something enthralling about the performances as there is about the narration, which is simple, straightforward, warm and touching. Jones is just lovely as a girl caught between her deep affection for her family – hugely concerned about their handicap – and her own dreams of making it big in the world of music. And, all this has been scripted with admirable sensitivity.
CODA is on Apple + TV and is a must-watch.
