In just one of many lovely comedic scenes, a doctor tells Ruby’s parents that, for reasons we won’t get into here, they can’t have sex for two weeks. She’s needed for every business meeting, every doctor’s appointment. Then she goes to school, where she promptly falls asleep. on that boat, serving as both deckhand and interpreter with the hearing world.
Ruby, a high-school senior, begins her mornings at 3 a.m. The film begins on a commercial fishing boat, which is how the Rossi family of Gloucester, Massachusetts, earns a living. Matlin’s well-documented talent (she’s the only deaf actor to win an Oscar) is matched here by a terrific Troy Kotsur as her randy, jubilant husband Frank, and by a sensitive Daniel Durant as temperamental older brother Leo. Heder, who adapted her screenplay from the 2014 French film “La Famille Belier,” makes crucially effective decisions throughout, but none more important than the casting, with three extraordinary deaf actors playing the deaf family members.
If this is formula, I’m OK with that, and can you pass the Kleenex? There’s something in my eye. But somehow it never crosses the line, and if you see a few predictable moments coming … well, so what? They work - boy, do they ever. If there’s a flaw to “CODA” - the title stems from the term “child of deaf adult” - it may be that it wears its brimming heart on its sleeve to such an extent that it occasionally nears that fine line into formula, especially when it invents plot-moving conflicts that seem unnecessary.
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