As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.
TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn
Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her 26th guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome as always, Lafronda!
HER REVIEW: Sound of Metal
The film stars Ahmed as Ruben. Ruben works as a drummer in a heavy metal band along with his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke). One day while visiting a record store, Ruben’s hearing rapidly retreats. After visiting a doctor. Ruben goes to a sober house for addicts who are hearing impaired. He is resistant to go because he can’t take his girlfriend along for the resident sessions. It is there that he meets the head of the facility, Joe (Raci), who lost his hearing during Vietnam.
Several scenes really made a profound impression on me. In one, Ruben is being taught by a teacher to read lips while Ruben is observing the questions from a TV monitor. Earlier, Ruben puts a gun into mouth arguing with Lou about Ruben not wanting to go to the rehab home without her. There is a scene where Ruben is forced by his counselor Joe to write his thoughts on paper to better communicate for himself. In that solo scene, Ruben really struggles to put pen to paper. Later, there is a touching scene when Ruben teaches school students how to play the drums. Ruben and those students form a bond as Ruben adapts better to his life as a newly hearing-impaired person.
The director, Darius Marder, does an outstanding job. Marder directs effective scenes between Ruben interacting with school students and his fellow residents. Ruben goes to group meetings learning to sign language. Marder, also a co-writer for Sound of Metal, delivers with a perception of great nuance to combine sign language and speaking dialogue for Ruben.
The performance by Riz Ahmed is truly intense and thoughtful. During the film, Ruben has a better relation to the deaf community and shows great affection towards them. Ahmed and Cooke have a great warmth of chemistry between them as well. Ahmed’s character goes through an array of emotions, from losing his hearing to adapting to the silence of everyday life.
The movie is how not only Ruben deals with hearing loss. Ahmed’s character goes through a fundamental change. Dealing with his transformation to hearing and loss of hearing makes Sound of Metal a great exercise of being reborn into a new way of life. It also emphasizes how such an experience can make you a better man or a man who believes he’s held back by what he perceives as a handicap. Raci, as the manager and counselor, believes that hearing is not a handicap. When Ruben contemplates getting implants to restore his hearing, there is a fundamental disagreement, which is the heart of the movie.
My only complaint is that heavy metal music played early in the film is not my favorite type of music. Overall, Sound of Metal is a perceptive film about the process of change for Ruben’s character.
RATING: *** 1/2
CONCLUSION
Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!
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