Why Sundance hit CODA about growing up in a deaf family could be this year’s biggest crowd-pleaser – and a turning point for the entertainment industry
- CODA, which stands for ‘child of deaf adults’, stars deaf actress Marlee Matlin and British actress Emilia Jones in a coming-of-age story with a difference
- Matlin, the only deaf actor to win an Oscar – for Children of a Lesser God – hopes the film will be a watershed moment for the deaf community and Hollywood
CODA, a tender and stirring coming-of-age tale about the only hearing member in a deaf family, might be the crowd-pleasing film of the year, but it was only a few weeks ago that director Sian Heder saw it with an audience.
For months after its lauded premiere at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in January (where the movie fetched a Sundance record US$25 million acquisition price and won the top prize), Heder had heard from people who had watched Coda at home on a link about how the film moved them, how it made them cry, how important it is. But when she screened it in Gloucester, in the US state of Massachusetts, where the film is set, she could finally hear something else: how big the laughs it gets are.
“You don’t really know that those work unless you’re sitting in a room full of people,” says Heder.
CODA, which went on cinematic release across the US and debuted on Apple TV+ on August 13, is poised to be something that’s been hard to find in a year light on crowds: a bona fide, heart-bursting, tell-everyone-about-it crowd-pleaser.
Starring a trio of sensational actors who are deaf – Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant – CODA is a reminder of what the movies have been missing.
