On my third Best Picture nominee, doing pretty well. This film has a lot going for it, but it also has a major demerit that makes it hard for me to like it as much as I otherwise might have. That being said, it’s a strong story well-told.
Ruben is a heavy metal drummer, touring across the country with his girlfriend/music partner Lou. Their plans are thrown for a loop when Ruben suddenly experiences a severe hearing loss. In the wake of such a major upheaval in his life, Lou worries about Ruben’s sobriety and reaches out to his sponsor, who finds a Deaf/hard-of-hearing rehab to get Ruben plugged into. Ruben is immediately focused on solutions, thinking about how he can scrape together the cash for Cochlear implants, and so he initially resists the community around him and the possibility of what it means to be Deaf.
Before anything else, we need to address this: from what I can tell, all the Deaf characters in this film are played by Deaf actors… with the exception of the two who got nominated for Oscars. I can pretty much understand Riz Ahmed as Ruben, since the whole point is that he’s playing someone who’s only just lost his hearing and is still very much in a hearing mindset. However, 1) that continues the Hollywood trend of mostly just wanting to explore disability as a crisis point, the moment of become disabled and the fallout therein. And 2), I hesitate to say that Ruben had to be played by a hearing actor. Given the fact that a Deaf person won Dancing with the Stars, who am I to say what a hard-of-hearing actor could’ve done in the role?
And regardless, you can’t argue an excuse for Paul Raci as Joe, a late-Deafened Vietnam vet who runs the rehab and serves as Ruben’s mentor. It’s nice that Raci is a CODA (a hearing Child Of Deaf Adults) who signs well, and I get that Joe is supposed to speak fluently and serve as kind of a go-between for Ruben in his early days in the program. But again, why couldn’t a hard-of-hearing or late-Deafened actor play this? There’s no reason, and it’s shady that a movie about exploring the richness and value of the Deaf community places hearing actors in both of the most prominent Deaf roles.
Okay, soap box moment accomplished, onto the rest of the movie. Even if the premise is kind of been-there-done-that as far as disability narratives are concerned, it’s a well-crafted story within that, and the film also scored a Best Original Screenplay nod. Ruben and Lou are both really well-drawn characters, and their flaws and personal damage come through loud and clear individually and in their relationship with one another; we see how they care for and protect one another, but also how they get in too deep with one another at times instead of focusing on their immediate problems. Ruben is a very likeable character who’s fairly screwed up and makes a lot of mistakes. It’s interesting to see how much he tries to deal with on his own, how much he resists letting people in and forges ahead as if he can make himself hear again through sheer force of will. Through his situation, we also see how isolating it can be to be without language access. In the early days of his experience, he’s alone on both the hearing and Deaf sides of the spectrum. Lou loves him and only wants to help him, but he has to constantly remind her to write down what she’s saying so he can understand her, and the bustling, vibrant Deaf recovery community is brimming with chatter in a language that he doesn’t know yet.
The dive into the Deaf community, hearing actors aside, is lovely. So many touchstones of that culture are present: the vital importance of schools, little things like flashing the lights or banging the table to get someone’s attention, accessibility tools like transcription software or telecommunications, Deaf games (I remember playing Elephant in college during interpreting classes,) and the debate over Cochlear implants, along with a depiction of what implants are really like and how they work. We also get heavily into the medical vs. cultural models of Deafness.
I will say that Riz Ahmed does an excellent job as Ruben, and I get why he’s up for Best Leading Actor. I appreciate that the character work is front and center at least as much as the whole “playing Deaf” aspect, with Ahmed depicting Ruben’s tumultuous inner life really well. He does well with his ASL, and his progression of signing is realistic for someone in Ruben’s situation. Personally, I’m less convinced of Paul Raci’s Best Supporting Actor nomination. Not that he isn’t good, but I feel like his nomination is more reflective of the “playing Deaf” thing, and I’m still admittedly salty about his casting. Most of the Deaf characters played by Deaf actors have much smaller, less-defined roles, but I did recognize Lauren Ridloff as a teacher at the Deaf school. She broke onto the scene a few years ago in the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God, and I’m super pumped to see her as Marvel’s first superhero with a disability when Eternals comes out.
Warnings
Language, smoking, drug/drinking references, sexual references, and strong thematic elements (including references to suicide and self-harm.)
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