Review of Sound of Metal (2020) by Ajgo85 — 23 Apr 2021

While hanging out with musician friends at shows I noticed that before playing, they all put in earplugs. I wondered why since I thought this would make it difficult for them to hear each other. This was very much not the case. If you’ve ever been to a loud concert, it is way, way louder on stage. So, the premise of Sound of Metal, about a working-class heavy metal drummer whose world is turned upside down by sudden and profound hearing loss, is frighteningly believable. Thankfully, my friends still have their hearing. The path that Ruben, played by Riz Ahmed with one of the best performances of the year, finds himself on is abrupt and unexpected to put it mildly. Likewise, the film never quite goes where you expect, but you believe every moment and every emotion. I wasn’t expecting Sound of Metal to receive 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, but I am very happy that it did because I cannot think of many movies from 2020 that I enjoyed more. Faced with the loss of his hearing, his livelihood, and potentially his relationship, Ruben also fears losing his four years of sobriety from heroin. In need of immediate and special help, his girlfriend and bandmate, Lou (Olivia Cooke), takes him to a sobriety house especially for the deaf. The house is run by Joe (Paul Raci), a deaf Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic who gives off the impression that his inner peace only came after a hard struggle. He takes Ruben under his wing but tells him that his program is about finding a solution to the problem in his mind, not his deafness. The scenes of Ruben at the deaf sober house and learning how to live without hearing are interesting and very engaging. Director Darius Marder’s gentle approach to the characters and Ruben’s journey gives us the feeling that we are getting a window into a real community with real people, not participating in a kind of cultural tourism.

As much as I admire the approach taken by Marder’s direction and the screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Abraham, Sound of Metal works so well because of Riz Ahmed’s performance. This is not a case of an actor showing off their talents by playing a character with a disability. Ahmed plays a full range of emotions but the real pathos comes from his facial expressions, especially his expressive eyes. Most important of all to the movie’s success, he is not afraid to show big vulnerability on screen or show just how afraid and anxious someone in this situation would feel, especially if they were a musician.

Though we see Ruben getting on well at the sober house and with the larger deaf community, he still wants to have cochlear implant surgery which he believes will allow him to return to his old life. This is at odds with Joe’s belief that being deaf is not a handicap or something to be fixed and leads to one of the most compelling and affecting scenes of the movie; one that likely earned Ahmed and Raci their Oscar nominations. It is easily one of the best moments in any movie I saw over the last year. I will admit that I was hesitant to watch Sound of Metal at first, despite its positive reviews, because a movie about a young musician going deaf seems like a heavy or even depressing movie. However, Sound of Metal ends up being an uplifting film without delving into melodrama or smarmy sentiment. Every aspect of this movie is low-key, allowing every moment to feel genuine. This is not the kind of movie with twists but it does have unexpected narrative turns which are best left to be discovered along with Ruben. All of the unexpected places, both physical and emotional, the story takes us are what make it memorable. The empathy in the performances from Paul Raci, Olivia Cooke, Mathieu Amalric, and, most of all, Riz Ahmed are what make it so moving. Sound of Metal is something special: a film so seemingly simple but deeply affecting. It is a character study so well executed that it transcends its premise and puts us so in tune with the main character that its final moments become spiritual, or philosophical, depending on your inclination.