There is a lot of talk going around currently about how Coda could break a lot of the stats as to what gives a film the weight to win the Academy Award for Best Picture over the favorite, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog.
A lot has changed recently with the award season where it does seem like some voting bodies tend to vote their own way rather than vote like sheep to predict what may win the Oscar...so in short, despite history not truly proving it is possible (at least in terms of recent Academy Awards records), I do think Coda has a chance to win all 3 of its Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur.
You have to go back to the early days of these awards to find a film winning Best Picture with less than 5 nominations...but Coda also hasn't won any real Best Picture awards to show any weight...not to mention that its director, Sian Heder, hasn't been nominated in most places.
And yet, I still feel inclined to suspect that Coda could pull it off thanks to its warmer and sweeter aesthetic which certainly paints it in a more positive like than the polarizing Power of the Dog. I also think the preferential ballot could help it in this case (such as its win last night with the Producers Guild of America Awards)...but I will save the rest of that talk for my Oscars prediction post.
Coda is definitely a sweet movie. I can't deny that moments of it moved me a little.
I also can't deny that I didn't really like it overall.
Yes, I know, here comes Debbie Downer...but okay, let me tell you about Coda and then I will explain why I didn't have the same rapturous response to it that many have.
Coda is actually a remake of the 2014 French film La Familie Beiler (which I, admittedly, have not seen) which takes that film's setting on a farm and moves it to a fishing boat off of coastal Massachusetts. The titular Coda (child of deaf adults) is Ruby (Emilia Jones), and she is the only hearing member of her family which includes father Frank (Troy Kotsur), mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin), and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant).
They run a fishing business and Ruby's plans are to join their team full time once she graduates high school...but things take a turn for Ruby when she is compelled to join the school choir and her singing voice shows immense promise; so much so that her choir teacher Mr. Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez) wants to recommend her for an audition at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Like I said, it's a sweet movie and it was mostly enjoyable...but it also felt like I could call every plot point while it happened.
-Girl comes from a unique and sometimes difficult family dynamic.
-That dynamic makes her an outcast at school.
-Thankfully, she has one friend who is great for her.
-Girl has immense talent.
-Girl is too shy to show off this talent.
-Girl joins choir and eventually opens up.
-Girl admires boy from afar who normally would never pay attention to her.
-Girl and Boy are made to sing a duet.
-Girl and Boy have a falling out.
-Boy fights back and ends up falling for Girl.
This cliche romance plot feels completely unnecessary in the film. All it does is further sink the film into seeming more boilerplate and bland than it might've been...but from what I understand, they followed a lot of the plot beats to a tee from the original French film.
A lot of the success from the film comes from its deaf actors. Musical theatre fans will probably recognize Daniel Durant who recently played Moritz in the DeafWest-transfer Broadway revival of Spring Awakening which also featured Marlee Matlin. However, Marlee Matlin is easily the most established deaf actor working today and her presence here is certainly welcomed.
However, the most successful aspect of this film was Troy Kotsur as Frank the patriarch. He is a brash and somewhat crude fisherman, but he provides the film with both its heart and soul. I would even go as far to say that he singlehandedly made the film worth watching in some ways.
Near the end of the film, we get a scene where Ruby sings the song she sang as a duet for her father: Marvin Gaye & Tami Terrell's You're All I Need to Get By. Since he is unable to hear her, he puts his hands to her throat to feel the vibration from her vocal chords.
This moment is what I think will really drive a potential win for Troy Kotsur at the Oscars next Sunday. As he watches and feels her singing (and Emilia Jones is a very good singer), tears stream down his face as he smiles with great pride...which was built upon him and Matlin watching the audience react very positively her performance just moments before.
I hadn't planned on writing about Coda to be honest. It didn't really drum up a lot of passion for me but now, it has a very good chance of winning Best Picture and I felt like I should address that it is a film that just feels too slight and twee. I love that these deaf actors get a chance to get work but what I REALLY hope is that it gets them better roles in better films that would certainly be far more worthy of their talents.
I wanted so much more...but maybe this will be enough to propel Durant and Kotsur to get work and to particularly allow Matlin to maintain a career that she has deserved a lot more from ever since Children of a Lesser God.
RATING: 2.5/5
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