Title: Sound of Metal

Year: 2019

Country: USA, Belgium

Language: English, American Sign Language, French

Genre: Drama, Music

Director: Darius Marder

Screenwriter: Darius Marder, Abraham Marder

based on the story by Darius Marder, Derek Cianfrance

Music: Nicolas Becker, Abraham Marder

Cinematography: Daniël Bouquet

Editing: Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

Cast:

Riz Ahmed

Olivia Cooke

Paul Raci

Mathieu Amalric

Lauren Ridloff

Chelsea Lee

Rating: 7.3/10

Navigating a telling three-act drama about a heavy metal drummer’s experience of losing his hearing, SOUND OF METAL, the debut feature of Darius Marder, the screenwriter of Derek Cianfrance’s THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES (2012), is a four-square life-affirmer that boosts distinctively muffled and distorted sound design (its foley artists have done a high-wire act to immerse audience to a hearing-impaired existence) and two splendid performances from Riz Ahmed and Paul Raci.

A platinum blond Ahmed is Ruben Stone, who forms the band Blackgammon with his girlfriend Lou (Cooke), and has to cope with his sudden hearing loss, after which he separates from Lou and is impelled to join a deaf community to learn “how to be deaf”, but on the sly, Ruben still wishes to revert to his old life with Lou if he can get cochlear implants, which can bring him back to the hearing world.

The first act mainly comprises Ruben and Lou’s wrong-footed response to the setback, a former drug-addict who has been clean since he and Lou are together four years ago, Ruben is on the verge of recrudescence, and Lou’s support is not enough to turn the table. Ergo, the second act is set in a rural deaf community headed by Joe (Raci), a deaf Vietnam veteran, who can read lips, and welcomes Ruben with open arms. There, Ruben is tasked to find peace with his newfound condition, and slowly he integrates into the community, learning American Sign Language, making friends with other deaf people. However, the sticking point is that Ruben still clings to the hope that he can regain his hearing and deems “deafness” a defect, which goes against the community’s tenet. After securing enough cash for his implanting operation, Ruben is dismissed from the community, here Raci, who is not deaf himself, but raised by deaf parents, he is proficient in ASL and has been a prominent figure in that sphere, gives a tour-de-force admonition that transmutes homily to something sublimely touching and cogent, a rousing plea to inculcate the world how a deaf person should be treated.

But one must take their own sweet time to reconcile with one’s fate, for Ruben, the ability of hearing, granted by the implant, is not what it used to be, the sound he receives is warped, uncanny and metallic. During the third act, where he goes to Belgium to reunite with Lou, it dawns on him that aurally the world will never be the same to him, the most painful loss for him is Lou’s singing voice and their relationship, to which Marder manages to add a whiff of classism (Amalric has a peculiar cameo as Lou’s wealthy father), though their breaking-up scenes overtly avoid stating the obvious. For what it is worth, SOUND OF METAL is so therapeutically conceived and conscientiously wrought that it is far too easier to overlook its foibles (like its commonplace, innocuous treatment of handicapped people, or on a lesser extent, its tedious application of emphasizing the environmental buzzing and humming). Finally, a big shout-out to Ahmed, the heart and soul of the film, fine-tunes Ruben’s every predictable step and swerve in such facility and devotion, his first Oscar nomination might not be a pipe dream!

referential entries: Derek Cianfrance’s THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES (2012, 7.1/10); Damien Chazelle’s WHIPLASH (2015, 8.7/10); Chloé Zhao’s THE RIDER (2017, 8.1/10).