Sound of Metal 🦻

Happy Thursday! I hope you’ve had a beautiful week. An interesting quote — Universal’s Chief Distribution Officer recently said: “We at Universal believe that a reasonably priced VOD transaction that occurs a few weeks or so after a film is theatrically released is what's right for the ecosystem.” The ecosystem being the entire movie industry. Do I agree? I’m warming up to the idea.

🍿 Today’s movie: The Sound of Metal revels in silence

Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Today’s movie is Darius Marder’s directorial debut Sound of Metal (2020). Marder wrote the woefully underrated The Place Beyond the Pines back in 2012, which Derek Cianfrance directed. In turn, Cianfrance co-wrote this film. Here’s what it’s about:

Ruben (Riz Ahmed), the drummer for a heavy metal band, suddenly loses his hearnig throwing his nomadic lifestyle with his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) into a tailspin. Ruben, also a recoverin addict, joins a community for the hearing-impaired where he must learn to live with silence or find a way to get his sound back. [Trailer]

▶︎ Streaming on Prime Video

Why you should watch it: There is a scene about halfway through the film where Joe (Paul Raci) gives Ruben (Ahmed) the assignment of sitting in a room with a cup of coffee and a notepad and do nothing. He tells him if he gets the urge to do something to write in the notepad. For most people, it sounds like an easy task, but have you ever done it?

That is the most impactful scene in Sound of Metal because it, like many other of the film’s decisions, helps put you in the mind space of Ruben by turning it into something you can relate to. When you’re uncomfortable with yourself, the silence—whether literal or figurative—when you’re not accomplishing something is deafening.

Sound of Metal‘s greatest strength is its ability to immerse you in Ruben’s world. Through visual cues and smart sound design where we shift in and out of Ruben’s ability of hearing, we feel what he’s feeling. Both the silence and the moments of magic created by the deaf community he finds himself in. Sound of Metal is one of those good ol’ fashioned character-driven dramas that we don’t tend to get any more. One so satisfyingly human that by the end you feel you understand someone — or yourself — a little bit more. [Full review]

A talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before year of life is ahead. Take advantage of it. (If you couldn’t tell I tend to write these after therapy).

See you next week —
Karl

📽 P.S. You can see every movie I’ve ever recommended right here.

🍅 I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes! You can find new movie reviews here.