CODA SUNDANCE MOVIE

Impressively polished and inarguably big-screen mainstream, it owns a proud sense of risk-taking. It feels like a cheat to include a major studio picture in a roundup of an independent film festival, but Shaka King’s scorching Judas and the Black Messiah-which will go down as one of best films of 2021-nonetheless left its mark on Sundance as the kind of studio filmmaking of yore that’s been dearly missed. Here are the 12 best movies we saw at this year’s Sundance. In short, this particular festival was one for the books in more ways than one, setting an example for how well-utilized technology can both uphold and augment long-standing moviegoing traditions held dear by film lovers. And there were still virtual talks, panels, a boundary-pushing New Frontier program, and online parties that preserved a sense of unity between audiences and storytellers around the globe. But narrative films and documentaries alike still seized the moment, speaking to our times of the virus and quarantine, political turmoil, gun violence, and refugee crisis in sharp and thought-provoking ways.

Perhaps the pickings were slimmer in number this year, an expected side effect of COVID-19’s impact on the industry. But under the superb leadership of the newly minted festival director, Tabitha Jackson, the former head of the Sundance Institute’s documentary film program, Sundance maintained its independent spirit despite the odds, expanding Park City’s intoxicating atmosphere beyond the mountainous skirts of Utah. Consequently, the festival’s 2021 edition yielded no standing ovations, no frosty lines outside of screening venues or parties, and no amusing Twitter-based complaints about the perennially late and overpacked shuttle busses. Except this one was like no other, having mostly moved to the virtual space due to the ongoing pandemic, save for a handful of in-person outdoor screenings and events taking place around the country. It's the signed I love you, holding them close.Another Sundance Film Festival came to a close. By the movie's end, you fully understand: The last word in the script isn't the spoken 'go,' urging someone away. Matlin personally championed the film to the point of what she describes as obsession, praising CODA to The Los Angeles Times as an authentic depiction of deaf people in normal, day-to-day life.īut CODA isn't just authentic with its subjects in terms of their disability - it's authentic with the treatment of their emotions, too. But the term perhaps downplays how special the film is, too.

Jones' performance is award-worthy, but some of the best scenes belong to her co-stars, including an awkward and hilariously graphic sex talk by Ruby's well-meaning father.Ĭritics are already describing CODA as a 'crowd-pleaser,' even if there was never an assembled crowd to actually see it.

But there is no soggy melancholy in Heder's script, which is luminously funny, although it will have you in tears by its final scene.īoth Heder and Jones learned sign language for the film, while CODA's deaf characters are played by deaf actors Marlee Matlin (the Oscar-winning actress of Children of a Lesser God, who plays Ruby's mother), Daniel Durant (Ruby's older brother Leo), and Troy Kotsur (Ruby's father).

CODA SUNDANCE MOVIE

Writer/director Siân Heder shot the movie entirely in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 2019 - the same rough locale as another major Sundance hit, 2016's Manchester By the Sea. Juggling all three, though, is an impossible task, and Ruby has to sort through her complicated sense of familial obligation and the independence she feels she owes herself. The title's acronym, which stands for 'Child Of Deaf Adults,' describes Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), a high school senior who divides her time between serving as an interpreter for her family, working on her father's fishing boat, and pursuing her love of singing. But the fractured nature of this year's film festival shouldn't temper the celebration of CODA, which in all likelihood will be not just one of the best movies at Sundance, but of the year.

Coda sundance