Music and family duty pull in opposite directions for the one hearing member of a deaf household in this coming-of-age drama.
What is CODA about?
Ruby, played by Emilia Jones, grows up as the only hearing person in a deaf family, translating for her parents and brother in a fishing town where the family's livelihood depends on her ears as much as her hands. When that livelihood comes under threat, Ruby is forced to weigh her growing love of singing against the fear of leaving her parents without the one family member who can bridge their world and the hearing one around them. The film draws its premise from a French film, La Famille Bélier, reworking the same core idea, a hearing daughter caught between two obligations, into its own setting and voice.
About the cast
Emilia Jones plays Ruby opposite Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, and Marlee Matlin as her family, with Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth, and Kevin Chapman completing a cast that moves comfortably between spoken dialogue and sign language throughout.
Context & significance
Director Siân Heder builds the film around a small fishing community, letting the rhythms of that working life sit alongside Ruby's music lessons rather than treating either one as background. The production draws on backing from both France and the United States, and its music genre elements, rehearsals, auditions, a family business that runs on tight margins, give the coming-of-age story a grounded, working-class texture rather than a purely sentimental one. At a fairly compact runtime, the film keeps its focus tight on Ruby's household rather than widening into a larger ensemble drama, which keeps the central push and pull between duty and ambition front and center throughout.
Watching CODA on Ktime
The film is available on K-Time with a free account login, along with Farsi dubbing and Farsi subtitles for anyone who wants to follow it in Persian. K-Time is built around a Farsi-first viewing experience for Persian-speaking audiences everywhere, so toggling between the original soundtrack and a dubbed version takes only a moment.