CODA is a 2021 comedy-drama film written and directed by Sian Heder about Ruby, the hearing daughter (Emilia Jones) of deaf adults (hence the title), her former beauty queen mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin) and her fisherman father Frank (Troy Kotsur). As their business is threatened, Ruby joins a glee club run by the kind but firm Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), who discovers her talent for music and encourages her to go to musical school, away from her beloved family.
At least half the film's dialogue is in American Sign Language, due to much of the cast being Deaf. As a result of her immediate family members being deaf, Ruby also knows ASL fluently, translating for her parents and brother whenever they need to talk to hearing people who don't know ASL.
An American remake of the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, CODA premiered at Sundance in 2021, before being purchased by Apple TV+ and premiering in August 2021.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Towards the end, after Ruby has finished singing a song to her father on the truck, he tenderly kisses her forehead.
- Affectionate Nickname: Ruby's choir teacher calls her "Bob" in reference to the empowering Bob Dylan story he told her early on.
- Alliterative Name: Ruby Rossi.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The Movie.
- Early on, Ruby feels quite embarrassed when her parents pick her up from school with their truck playing extremely loud music.
- Later Ruby has to suffer from her dad talking (through sign language) about how Miles, her new boyfriend, should use a condom while they have sex, in a very over-the-top way (the two aren't actually sexually active). It would be amusing to many people watching the film, but much the opposite for her.
- And this is immediately after Miles overhears Ruby's parents having sex. Again they didn't realize how loud they were being, since they're both deaf.
- Artistic License – Law: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, there should have been an ASL interpreter for the family provided at the very least in the courtroom. Ruby would not have to be the one translating. This is presumably due to Rule of Drama.
- Asleep in Class: Happens to Ruby twice thanks to her having to get up at 3 am every morning to help out with her family's fishing business.
- Bar Brawl: Ruby's brother gets into a fistfight with another patron at the local pub.
- Big Brother Instinct: Leo reacts angrily when Ruby announces she will forego college to work full-time with the fishing business, not just because he doesn't want the family to continue relying on Ruby, but also because he doesn't want her to pass up a good opportunity.
- Big Damn Heroes: Mr. Villalobos returns to save Ruby's audition.
- Coming of Age Story: The film is about Ruby trying to figure out her own path in life and realizing her independence.
- Commonality Connection: Miles is surprised to see a record from The Shaggs at Ruby's place.
- Consistent Clothing Style: Ruby frequently wears shorts or a mini skirt with a plaid shirt on top.
- Cool Teacher: Mr. Villalobos may be a bit strict and snarky, but he's very passionate about what he does and when he comes across a promising talent who needs extra pushing, he's incredibly encouraging and helpful to Ruby.
- Daddy's Girl: Ruby is closer to her easygoing father than her strict mother.
- Diegetic Switch: A couple of times does a song switch between in-universe and soundtrack like the radio song they sing on the boat in the opening scene or when Ruby listens to "You're All I Need To Get By" on her headphones while cycling to the harbor.
- Disabled Means Helpless: Deconstructed. The rest of the Rossis are very dependent on Ruby, who can hear while they are all deaf. However, it's made clear that they actually came to rely on her because they didn't want her to have a harder life because of their disabilities, which ultimately led to them getting more isolated from hearing families.
- Disappeared Dad: Gertie mentions that her parents are divorced and her dad left.
- Double-Meaning Title: In addition to standing for "Child Of Deaf Adults", "coda" can also mean a concluding passage of music in a composition. The coda symbol is clearly visible on the page of musical symbols Mr. Villalobos is teaching Ruby during the Hard-Work Montage scene.
- Ends with a Smile: The movie ends with Ruby leaning out of the car window, signing "I love you so much" to her family, and smiling to herself before she puts her head back in and drives away to Berklee.
- Family Business: The Rossis operate a fishing business. Ruby assists and plans to work full-time after high school.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Ruby loves music and wants to sing, but her family cannot understand because they are all Deaf.
- "Friends" Rent Control - Musical Instrument Edition: Unlike in the original French film, where the music teacher plays a standard electric keyboard, Mr. V's piano is a Bösendorfer baby grand, worth over $100,000. Even if Ruby's high school had access to an instrument like this, it's unlikely they would be keeping it in a classroom and using it for choir rehearsals.
- Group Hug: When Ruby exits the car at the end to give her family a final hug.
- Happily Married: Jackie and Frank are absolutely besotted with each other after decades, even to the point of refusing to stop having sex for a period of time.
- Hard-Work Montage: One showing Ruby both practicing hard with her choir teacher while also having to help her parents build up their new business.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: When it gets too noisy around her house, Ruby puts on earphones to better concentrate which her mother feels is rude towards them.
- Impairment Shot: Audio version. Two scenes in the movie cut the audio to demonstrate how Ruby's family experience the world. The first is one of the tensest scenes in the film, when the Coast Guard boards the boat and Leo and Frank don't know what's going on. The second is more bittersweet, when the whole family goes to the choir concert, and the family watches Ruby singing in silence, looking around at the audience for cues to how she's doing.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Jackie used to be a model, and from Ruby's reaction at the dinner table, the topic must be brought up a lot. However, unlike most examples of this trope, Jackie is still very attractive in the present.
- I Wished You Were Dead: Ruby's angry brother tells her that the family was better off before she was born.
- Kids Are Cruel: Kids at school tease Ruby for smelling like fish and having a deaf family.
- Like Goes with Like: In that Ruby's parents are both Deaf.
- Longing Look: Ruby's crush on Miles comes with a high dose of longing looks in his direction whenever he's around.
- Moving-Away Ending: The movie ends with Gertie driving Ruby away from Gloucester, so she can attend Berklee in Boston. Despite her reluctance, she does go.
- Mutual Envy: Miles wishes his parents had a happy marriage like Frank and Jackie do and respected and trusted him the way they seem to trust Ruby. Ruby, while she loves her family, sometimes seems to wish they were less Sickeningly Sweethearts and could hear so they could appreciate her music (Miles' dad is implied to be a violinist).
- My Brother Is Off Limits: Downplayed. Ruby's Only Friend Gertie develops a crush on her brother, and while Ruby has mixed feelings about this, their friendship endures even after the two love birds get into full Make-Out Kids mode by the end of the movie.Gertie: Damn, Leo got hot!Ruby: Ew!Gertie: What? He can't hear me. Does he work out or are those, like, fishing muscles?Ruby: OK, stop. You cannot date my brother.
- Non-Indicative Name: In the sense that it's not clear CODA is technically initials (for "child of deaf adults").
- Non-Verbal Miscommunication:
- Gertie asks Ruby how to sign the expression "You're really smoking hot," which she gives to Leo on her way out of the Rossi house. After she's gone, Leo signs to Ruby, "What's up with Gertie? She just told me she has herpes."
- Mr. Villalobos meets Ruby's family after the choir's recital. Mr. V signs what he thinks is a pleasantry to Ruby's family, which leaves them uncomfortable. Mr. V had inadvertently given them the wrong hand sign, meaning "Nice to fuck you".
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Ruby mainly finds hearing her parents have sex icky because Miles is there, but she's also shown to have to deal with taking them to the doctors for embarrassing, sex-related reasons. She even tries convincing them that the doctor advised them to stop having sex permanently (it was actually two weeks).
- Parents as People: There's no doubt that Frank and Jackie love Ruby very much but it's also shown that they don't fully appreciate how much she struggles with their dependence on her and the sense of isolation she feels as the only hearing person in the family and Jackie admits she was worried she would be a bad mother due to the barrier between them.
- Performance Anxiety: Ruby freezes up and runs out of the room when she is first asked to sing in front of everyone else during choir.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Ruby has a fallout with her choir teacher halfway through the movie because of her Conflicting Loyalty between her passion to sing and her obligation to help her family.
- Right Through the Wall: Jackie and Frank have sex when Ruby has Miles over. Being Deaf, they don't realize that they are ''loud'' and Ruby and Miles can hear them.
- Shout-Out: Mr. Villalobos doesn't want students who have watched too many episodes of Glee.
- Silence Is Golden: At the recital, there is a sequence during Ruby's solos that is played without sound, showing the perspectives of Ruby's family. The prolonged scene poignantly illustrates how Jackie, Frank, and Leo cannot hear how good Ruby is or the audience's enthusiastic reactions. However, they do catch facial expressions from the audience that indicate that Ruby is a good singer after all.
- The Silent Bob: All of Ruby's family don't vocalize, and say everything with signing. The one line verbally spoken by any of them is from father, Frank, to his daughter, Ruby, in the last scene of the film. When she's having a difficult time leaving them, he tells her "Go."
- Start My Own: When Ruby and her family finally get fed up with how poorly the fish market treats them and their fellow fishermen, they end up making a miniature market of their own, selling the fish they catch straight off the dock.
- Suspiciously Apropos Music: The songs Ruby performs throughout the movie show a striking parallel to her feelings for Miles and her family respectively.
- Too Much Information: When her father describes his jock itch to the doctor, Ruby is disgusted by the detail he goes to.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Heavily downplayed with Frank and Jackie. The former is played by the ruggedly handsome Troy Kotsur, but his messily long hair and beard are not exactly fashionable. Meanwhile, Jackie is played by Marlee Matlin, whose beauty has not faded a bit with age. Somewhat justified in that Frank is not concerned with his appearance, being a working-class fisherman and all, as much as Jackie, who used to be a model.
- Wham Line: Where the "wham" comes from it being spoken, rather than signed. Frank tells Ruby to "go".
