Year of Release: 2019
Director: Darius Marder
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Mathieu Almaric, Lauren Ridloff, Chelsea Lee, Bill Thorpe, Tom Kemp, Michael Tow, Chris Perfetti
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review:
"The Sound of Metal" premiered at the Toronto Film Festival of 2019, and made the rounds of several film festivals during 2020, garnering several accolades during its path. The film follows the story of Ruben, who's a drummer for an alternative band, fronted by his girlfriend, Lou. While on tour he starts realizing his hearing is being severely impacted, until it's all gone. He and Lou quickly go to a specialist, who while diagnosing his condition, can't really tell what prompted the hearing loss. He is informed there is a procedure that can overcome that, or at least aid him recover some hearing, but it's a costly procedure which is not covered by insurance. While he and Lou figure out what to do, one of their friends tips them on a small deaf community, which is run by Joe, a Vietnam War veteran. The community teaches people to deal with their deafness, by treating it as part of their lives and not as a disability or impairment. As Lou leaves to continue their music path, Ruben tries to adjust to his new reality, learning a new language, and trying to come to terms with a past that still feels so close by, and a new reality that is forcing him on a different path.
"The Sound of Metal" is the debut feature of Darius Marder, who also wrote the story in collaboration with film maker Derek Cianfrance (who directed "Blue Valentine" and "The Place Beyond the Pines"). Marder has skillfully created a film that illustrates the journey of someone whose life is completely upended by a new physical condition, and how that trickles into everything that defines this person, including how he perceives himself and others. The film is at its best when it captures the relationships between Ruben and Joe, and the various interactions he has with the members of the community. Though the supporting characters are thinly characterized, there's a vulnerability that comes across in these interactions that really give the film an emotional impact. Ruben's interactions with Lou, his partner, are not so well resolved, mostly because that particular character is not as fully dimensional as Ruben is. This film is indeed Ruben's narrative and journey, but Lou is the character who has supposedly saved him, and who is a guiding light in his life, but she mostly comes across as someone who doesn't who she is, and towards the end, she becomes a poster girl for the artsy fleeting persona, with a slightly damaged past and rich intellectual parents. Even if these characterizations are not as effective, there's much to admire in this film, and Riz Ahmed manages to create a compelling character which grounds and provides emotional depth to the narrative (the same going for Paul Raci). A good film worth watching.
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