But those passages are often drowned out by Ruby's vocal training, repetitive scenes about mean girls from school, and the subplot romance between her and duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). When "CODA" gets into those unfortunate truths and grittier confessionals, it comes alive. But tonally, exploring the thornier sides of this predicament is hit or miss, largely because the film doesn't have as much room to fully unpack the complex relationships each member in the family unit has with one another.Ī handful of scenes brilliantly illustrate how far Frank would go to get outside of his own comfort zone if only his wife was less obsessed with the family keeping to themselves, or explore Leo's jealousy and frustration with the way Ruby is exalted within their clan, despite him being the older brother who should be counted on more. The family dysfunction side of the narrative works best when it mines comedy from how engrained Ruby must be in her family's lives, like in a scene where she has to interpret for a doctor explaining a sensitive health issue to her father and must be the bearer of bad news to the unusually horny couple that sex is off the table for the next few weeks.
Sure, Ruby bails on them out of spite, but before this current conflict, she never took a sick day? A tumultuous scene where Frank and Leo are fishing without Ruby while an overseer tips the Coast Guard off that they're violating all manner of rules by not having a hearing deck hand around is properly suspenseful, but makes Frank look like an idiot and a worse father than he truly is for literally never preparing for something like this. The movie asks you to make some awkward leaps with regards to the logistics of the Rossi family's business and makes their willingness to exploit their daughter seem a little more pernicious than necessary solely for dramatic conflict.
In typical teen movie melodrama fashion, she is somewhat artificially forced to choose between her status quo with her family and a new world where she follows her own goals. Close calls follow with the Coast Guard because she's not there to listen out for radio transmissions, or her zoning out while being expected to handle interpretation for a local news crew doing a story about the family's new fish market co-op. These fears are exacerbated once Ruby's choir teacher Bernardo (Eugenio Derbez) starts tutoring her after school to audition at Berklee, causing Ruby's time to be split even further away from her duties on the boat. "If I was blind," Jackie asks her, "would you want to be a painter?" Her mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin) discourages her musical aspirations, not just because she can't know if her daughter is even any good at such a crapshoot career goal, but because she's terrified of her baby abandoning the family for the hearing world. It's her one escape from the Groundhog Day drudgery of living her life solely for helping keep her family afloat. Ruby is something of an odd duck at school, ostracized for being in an all-deaf family and for the inherent social awkwardness she possessed as a child coming from a home where no one else spoke.
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