Academy Award-Winning Best Picture CODA Stresses Importance of Family
By Movieguide® Contributor
The heartwarming family drama CODA received top honors at the 94th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, earning Best Picture.
CODA received a positive review from Movieguide®:
CODA is a heartwarming drama with a realistic feel to it. The acting is excellent. Even better, the movie has a strong Christian, moral, pro-family worldview. There are references to prayer and an emphasis on family members helping one another and staying together.
However, there are some cautions for CODA, as well: CODA is marred by excessive foul language, some New Age references to meditation, lots of strongly implied and demonstrated sex, and marijuana use. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
The story follows Ruby (Emilia Jones) a CODA or Child of Deaf Adults, who is torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents. The term is also appropriately defined as a “concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.”
CODA had its world premiere in January 2021 at the Sundance Film Festival where it won best director U.S. dramatic, U.S. grand jury prize: dramatic and the audience award: U.S. dramatic. It was not released in theaters or streaming until August of that same year, when Movieguide® sat down with director Sian Heder and lead actors Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur for an exclusive interview.
Marlee Matlin, who plays mom Jacki in the movie, won the Best Actress Oscar in 1987 for her role as Sarah in the movie CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD. She says that CODA is a “gem, a long time coming” and she “fell in love with it” after reading the script.
Of the family dynamic following Ruby’s announcement of her intent to pursue a musical career, Matlin says: “It comes to them unexpectedly. They never thought of music as a career. They never even thought that their daughter who is hearing needs to have her own identity, that she needs to be on her own. Because they were so focused on maintaining their daily lives and keeping together as a family.
“I think that the film will show that there is a journey for this family, that there is an eventual coming to a place of understanding that it can happen that your child can go on and dream on their own and it happens in deaf households, just like in the movie,” Matlin says.
Director Sian Heder, who is hearing, took home the Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), shares her approach to the project: “I felt a lot of responsibility telling this story, because whenever you’re telling a story that isn’t your own lived experience, and especially when you’re representing a community that’s not your own, I felt that it was important to surround myself with the people who could support that story.”
Heder says she came from immigrant parents and felt there was a cultural divide as an American kid whose parents didn’t fully understand her. She felt like her identity was wrapped up in her parents and leaving home was “outside the cocoon” of family, a dilemma which Ruby faces with her deaf family.
Of the experience working on set with a deaf cast and hearing crew, she says, “I think people felt very artistically fulfilled but also fulfilled as human beings because we were pushing everybody into thinking about how we as human beings relate and how we can find other ways to relate than what we’re used to.”
Actor Troy Kotsur, who plays dad Frank, took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and is the first deaf man to win the award. He says “switching back and forth [between the hearing and deaf worlds] is challenging for a CODA child.”
Watch our interview with the cast here.
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
