Ruby Rossi is in her last year of high school. She doesn't have a plan beyond graduation, because she assumes that she has to continue working with her father and brother on the family fishing boat. Ruby loves music and loves to sing, but the idea of actually trying to study music seems impossible, even after her music teacher sees promise in her and encourages her to apply to Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Deciding whether to work in the family business or go out on your own is always tough. But for Ruby, it is particularly difficult: Her parents and her brother are deaf. Ruby herself is not. She is a so-called CODA: a Child of Deaf Adults.
Directed and written by Sian Heder, CODA is closely based on a 2014 French film called La Famille Bélier, but this version has one important quality that the French film didn't have: The deaf characters are played by deaf actors.
The fundamental conflict for Ruby is the problems her dream would cause in her family. She's been her parents' interpreter since she was a child. Her parents-especially her mother-wonder what they would do without her to act as a bridge to the local community, which seems to have made no effort at all to communicate with the Rossis. This weighs on her parents, and it weighs on Ruby. Of course, it cannot go on like this forever. But what, her mother wonders, is the option?
CODA is a cheerfully conventional story in many respects. But the vivid description of the conflict between the children causes tears. Ruby feels that she's sacrificed a great deal for the family, but her brother envies the advantages she gets from being the only person that can communicate with the rest of the world effectively. This gentle description of the complex relations in the family, where everybody can love each other while still being stuck in habits they need to break, does have its own resonance(共鸣).
Did CODA deserve to crowd out the other movies at Sundance Film Festival as it had done? Probably not.