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The movie ‘CODA’ reminds us that cliches sometimes work — and brilliantly Washington Post Review by Ann Hornaday

August 10, 2021 at 3:27 p.m. EDT

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry” has become something of a cliche in the world of theater and

movies, the kind of pull quote from a rave review that guarantees a full gamut of

audience pleasure.

“CODA” is here to remind us that, as often as not, cliches are true — and sometimes

happen to work. This formulaic coming-of-age comedy-drama, adapted from the 2014

French film “La Famille Belier,” pushes our buttons shamelessly, but also with enough

sincerity, warmth and finesse to forestall accusations of rank manipulation. This is an

old-fashioned movie that adheres to admittedly familiar principles of storytelling and

emotional stakes, but by way of such a winning cast, evocative atmosphere and genuine

tone that its impossible not to love. For audiences weary of superheroic bombast and

worn out from puzzling through art house arcana, “CODA” is here to save the day. It’s

sweet, funny, meaningful and accessible in precisely the right measure.

We meet Ruby (newcomer Emilia Jones) when she’s working on the family fishing boat

with her dad Frank (Troy Kotsur) and brother Leo (Daniel Durant), singing her heart

out to no one in particular. Frank and Leo are deaf, as is Ruby’s mother Jackie (Marlee

Matlin). Ruby is a CODA — child of deaf adults — and as such, she is her household’s

chief interpreter and go-between with the outside hearing world.

It’s a role in which she has excelled, but now that she’s a high school senior, with dreams

of a singing career, she’s beginning to chafe under her family’s stifling combination of

dependence and wildly unconditional love. The title of “CODA,” then, carries two

meanings: More than being about deafness, this is a movie about bringing things to a

graceful but necessary end.

Written and directed by Sian Heder, “CODA” possesses the sunny optimism of so many

classics of the genre, a bracing look and feel that’s amplified by its setting in Gloucester,

Mass. Jones brings an appealing mix of diffidence and forthrightness to Ruby, who must

suffer Frank and Jackie’s unbridled approach to everything — especially their sex life,

which becomes a running gag. Matlin and Kotsur have a blast leaning into their

uninhibited characters, who are so used to being understood by their daughter that it

rarely occurs to them to try to understand her.

In “CODA,” deafness is a part of life but not its all-defining feature: Heder has made a

movie about the universal values of first love, family ties and the tug of an unknown

future, within a highly specific but immediately comprehensible context. And she does

not stint on the laughs: In addition to Frank and Jackie’s anarchic humor, “CODA”

benefits from the presence of Ruby’s glee club coach Mr. Villalobos, a martinet with a

heart of gold played with deadpan élan by Eugenio Derbez.

Did I say glee club? Yes I did, which means that in case “CODA” wasn’t adorable enough,

it’s elevated by a bevy of fun musical numbers, the most winsome of which is a duet that

Ruby rehearses with a dreamy schoolmate named Miles, played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo.

(Jones’s performance is all the more commendable considering that she’s British, had to

learn American Sign Language for this role, and is possessed of a lovely, unaffected

singing voice.)

Will Ruby and Miles ever kiss? Will Ruby nail the big audition to get into Berklee

College of Music? Will Frank’s fishing business survive without the negotiating acumen

of his daughter?

The audience knows that the answers to those questions are mostly preordained. But

that doesn’t detract from “CODA’s” myriad joys, which have less to do with novelty than

with the film’s simple, straightforward taste and a grounded sense of honesty. Nowhere

is that more obvious than in the film’s climactic scene, an adroitly staged performance in

which the feelings come fast and furious, each more contradictory than the last. You’ll

laugh, all right. You’ll cry. You’ll do both at the same time. “CODA” is just that kind of

movie. And thank goodness for it.