Mark Reviews Movies: SOUND OF METAL

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 19, 2020

Ruben (Riz Ahmed) needs a plan, needs a schedule, and needs a clear idea of what's coming next. He needs control, essentially, and who can blame him?

Here is a man, living on the fringes as he chases his dream—to be a musician, to make a career of it, to be remembered in some way for what he has accomplished. Here, too, is a man, four years sober from "everything," but mostly heroin, and sticking to his recovery. That's where Sound of Metal first finds Ruben, a drummer in a heavy metal duo, and even though we don't know the specifics of his past and his current state of sobriety, the signs of addiction, of dependence, and of needing, more than anything else, control are there from the very beginning.

Co-writer/director Darius Marder's film understands this character more than, perhaps, the character understands himself. That happens. We can lose our comprehension of our thoughts, our words, our actions, and our behavior, as well as how others perceive us, simply because we're so caught up in whatever moment or situation in which we find ourselves.

For Ruben, his life has become about two things: his music and his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke). She's the other half of the duo, playing guitar and singing mostly unintelligible lyrics with obvious passion, while Ruben pounds away at his drum kit to the rhythm of the tune. They play little, grimy clubs, traveling and sleeping in a classic camper in between gigs. Ruben wakes up to a routine—making breakfast, exercising while the coffee brews, listening to a variety of music. The two drive to the next gig, and the whole process repeats itself.

It's not making them money, although the two hope to record an album soon, but as unglamorous as this way of life may be, it is stable. They need stability, even if neither one will admit as much.

The drama of this screenplay, written by Marder and his brother Abraham, interrupts this routine and threatens to destroy that stability. While playing, Ruben's hearing begins to fade. There's a constant ringing in his ears, and sounds seem so far away that he can barely make them out. He is losing his hearing, quickly and severely, and all of this quaint happiness, as well as those bigger dreams, could come to an end—without warning, without any set schedule, without any plan for Ruben to follow.

This story could go a variety of ways. It seems to suggest a few as soon as Ruben discovers his problem. A doctor tells him that his current hearing loss will never recover and that he must preserve the hearing he still possesses. Instead, he goes right back to drumming. From what we know and later learn about Ruben, it would make sense, such a path toward self-destruction, whether or not he intends it.

The doctor also informs him about a cochlear implant, which could serve as a solution to his hearing loss, so there's another possible angle: Ruben must find a way to perform or otherwise make money, in order to pay for the expensive surgery and return to a sense of "normal." Either of those would serve as conflict for such a tale, featuring such a character.

The impressive thing about the Marders' screenplay is how it more or less rejects obvious conflict. In their minds, Ruben's situation is not a fated path toward self-destruction. It is not a problem to be solved. It is, simply, his new normal—with an emphasis on it being normal. The dramatic question is whether or not he will accept or even is capable of accepting such a notion.

Here, then, is a mature, thoughtful, and empathetic drama about acceptance, the long path toward it, and the constant, instinctual struggle of fighting against the very idea. Ruben is lucky. He has a support structure in Lou and his unseen recovery sponsor, who quickly finds a place that will both keep Ruben sober and guide him as he learns how to live with the loss of his hearing. Upon reaching the little community, set up on large ranch in the middle of nowhere, Ruben's support expands to Joe (Paul Raci, a strong and stable presence, whose final scene in the film is subtly devastating), a recovering alcoholic who lost his hearing in Vietnam and runs the place, and many others—friends at the community, teachers who show him sign language, young students who look up to him.

There are multiple paths that this story could have taken, but the Marders have found an unlikely, unique, and rewarding one—one that sees acceptance as the ultimate challenge, that treats a disability as something absolutely normal, and that gradually embraces the calmness of silence. Ruben, played with a discomforting sense of internal conflict by Ahmed, is at the center of this tale, but it's the stillness of his new routine that lingers. After rejecting the program at first, Ruben eventually becomes an established, vital part of this community.

Marder plays with the sound of this film, giving us a sense of how Ruben hears and doesn't hear the world as his condition worsens, but after a while, the film doesn't need to pull off such trickery (When it returns in the third, the trick, though, is particularly impactful). It simply watches, as people communicate through sign language (Subtitles match Ruben's progression in understanding the language), as they learn and play, and as Ruben, still addicted to the idea of "normal," starts to falter in the lessons he should be learning.

He does learn, eventually and after a lot of pain. Sound of Metal shows us that acceptance only comes as the cost we force ourselves to pay.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products