Sound of Metal

Director: Darius Marder
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff, Mathieu Amalric
Running Time: 120 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

In director/co-writer Darius Marder's Sound of Metal, we meet a drummer on the verge of going deaf. He's also a recovering addict, though that doesn't factor into the story how you'd even guess or expect. Whatever rock bottom is, he's about to hit it, his mindset existing somewhere between extreme denial, anger and delusion. In some strange sense, you could force yourself into admiring his stubborness and refusal to give up in a battle he little chance at winning because he's fighting the wrong problem in the wrong way.

Unknowlingly his own worst enemy, this character is someone who clearly views seeking help as a weakness when it's so much more obviously the braver choice to be made. But that's so easy to say from the outside looking in, and what's most engrossing about this intimately sharp, painful character study is how Marder never pushes too hard, just letting this all unfold. Far from a comeback or inspiring redemption tale despite fleeting moments where it seems headed that way, it also somehow avoids being a depressingly hopeless indie about a damaged man destroying everything and everyone around him.

This road is more realistically bumpy than that, with ups and downs that move at a rhythm  fittingly matching the protagonist's occupation and obsession. And just when we think that he's making a major breakthrough, self-sabotage kicks in, revealing the true scope of his predicament. Featuring two of the year's best performances, it also employs some inventive sound techniques that places us in the literal head space of a character losing his hearing, making for a discomforting but fully immersive and memorable experience. 

Recovering drug addict and drummer Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) and one half of the popular metal group, Blackgammon, along with his girlfriend and lead singer, Lou (Olivia Cooke). Together, they travel cross country in an RV performing gigs, until Ruben notices he's losing his hearing. After an audiologist confirms it, he's warned to focus on preserving the little hearing he has left, which is  rapidly deteriorating. Despite the warning, he continues to play, further exposing himself to loud music that worsens his condition When the surgical possibility of cochlear implants is brought up, its hefty price tag and the fact it isn't covered by insurance make that option a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

With concerns about Ruben's sobriety and refusal to give up performing, Lou talks to his sponsor, who sends him to a community home for deaf addicts run by Joe (Paul Raci), a recovering alcoholic who lost his hearing in Vietnam. After initially resisting, Ruben returns and Joe takes him under his wing, with the community helping him learn sign language and adjust to his new life as a deaf person. But that itch to return to his former life remains, still hoping to reunite with Lou and pick up where they left off with the band and their relationship. If he can get the money, surgery remains a tempting prospect, even as Joe offers him the opportunity to make his temporary stay at the home more permanent. 

With static, uintelligible voices and faint muffled noises, the sound design lets the viewer into Ruben's hearing loss as he experiences it, and it's a punishingly empty vacuum, closing off by the second. Now suddenly cut-off and disconnected from the rest of the world, his ability to effectively communicate seems to go within days and that he's also an addict serves to make any potential adjustment even more traumatizing. As someone who always had to keep moving, playing and performing to maintain his sanity and sobriety, when it all goes away, that silence puts him in a dangerous place. Lou senses this before he pushes her away too, eventually agreeing to seek help, while still refusing to fully acknowledge what that assistance is actually for. 

Much as been made about all the preparations an unrecognizably tatttooed Riz Ahmed undertook for the role, including learning drumming and American sign language. While that brings the authenticity, the lasting imprint he leaves with this complex, intense performance is that of an individual whose music had replaced the drugs. With the possibility of that now going away, he's completely exposed, unsure if there's any more to him beneath that. Well-traveled character actor Paul Raci plays Joe as a man who's been around the block and sees right through him, knowing Ruben's only path to salvation lies with him being comfortable in the stillness and silence that comes from settling into his new skin as a deaf person. 

The film's middle section focuses on what we believe will be Ruben's breakthrough, as he sits in with Diane's (Lauren Ridloff) class of deaf children, learning the ropes as he teaches them a little something about music in return. But he views this a lot differently than they do and we'd want him to, almost as a vehicle to somehow triumphantly regain his old life, which is an impossibility at best. 

At the film's heart is this philosophical showdown revolving around what constitutes a "disability." Ruben's refusal to envision any type of scenario where his hearing isn't "cured" goes against everything Joe believes in and works toward in this home. From Joe's standpoint, Ruben most definitely needs to be fixed, but his problem has less to do with deafness than an inability to accept the reality of his situation. 

This all comes to a head in a powerful masterclass of acting between Ahmed and Raci, a fight of wills between two people who do really respect one another, even if it can only end in one way. For Joe, continuing to help Ruben and keep him there is a toxic betrayal of the people he helps, just as the latter views Joe's philosophy as the equivalent of throwing in the towel. Just the very idea of a deaf person potentially being shunned by the deaf community for wanting to hear again is controversial in itself, but the script excellently presents these two opposing ethical stances.  

Some may find themselves impatient with the film's deliberate pacing as the story takes a dramatic detour in its prolonged final third, but it's an unexpected and necessary one. Ruben's attempt to reconnect with Lou and the the life he was forced to leave behind brings with it some painful, eye-opening realizations about his condition, hearing and otherwise. What he thought he always wanted, he may not, at least not in its current state. That there's any kind of realization from him at all is where the ending's potency comes from, subtly indicating that he could be headed in a more productive direction. But given his demons, it's still hard to discount the chance he's not. 

If blindness or sight loss is a condition frequently covered in dramas, comedies and even action or mystery thrillers, deafness has rarely been handled on screen as often, especially in such an honest, confrontational manner. Sound of Metal succeeds by putting a laser-like focus on the diagnosis itself and exploring its ramifications in real-world terms, resulting in a painful examination of our capacity to adapt to change. Should Ruben eventually accept what constitutes a new life, we get the impression it may only be the first in a long line of battles he'll now be better equipped to handle.