There aren’t exactly a lot of great movies about the hearing impaired. The stories tend to be horribly sappy, or unbearably sad. Darius Marder and Riz Ahmed hope to forge a new path though the dulcet tones of head banging heavy metal. That seeming dichotomy propels The Sound of Metal into Mr. Holland’s Opus/A Silent Voice territory, the first time heavy metal, Richard Dreyfuss, and anime bullying have ever had anything in common.
Ruben (Ahmed) and Lou (Olivia Cooke) are a duo touring through middle America with their heavy metal show. Though they aren’t making much money, they’re happy and clearly into each other. That beautiful stasis is crushed when Ruben’s hearing just…drifts away during a show, and when he wakes up in the morning, the problem remains. Panicked and desperate, Lou encourages, and Ruben agrees, to check into a hearing impaired facility run by Joe (Paul Raci). There’s a catch though: Lou can’t be a part of Ruben’s transition to a soundless existence.
The biggest challenge for Darius Marder is how to use sound/the absence of sound to drive home Ruben’s journey. Marder rises to the occasion; the sound design in The Sound of Metal succeeds in planting you in Ruben’s frame of mind. Marder really takes Ruben, and by proxy the audience, on a sound journey of someone losing their hearing. Marder mixes up the sounds depending on a combination of what Ruben might be hearing and how those sounds would make him feel: panicked when he can’t understand what a doctor is saying, peace when he finds a happy silent moment, off kilter when equipped with hearing enhancement. In addition, Marder is aware that most of the audience will not be hearing impaired, so he turns sound back to normal as a combo reset the audience back to normal/deliver some plot. By the end of the movie, we’re 100% clear about what an incredible ordeal Ruben has gone though, and completely root for him to find what he’s looking for. It’s a near mastery of the form from first time director Marder, and gives me some hope as to what he can do in the future.
And that brings us to the story and Riz Ahmed. Being a movie set inside his head, Ahmed really has to carry the movie a lot on his own without his voice. Without revealing anything, there’s a depth of worry Ahmed conveys entering the facility without Lou, and the talented actor finds deeper and deeper layers to Ruben. Essentially, Ahmed shows us someone who completely loses all sense of self, and has to rebuild themselves from nothing. Marder’s story is also bigger than just the hearing loss plot. The 3rd act reveals what the true aim of Ruben’s story is, leading to a wonderful ending that’s got all sorts of emotions going on. None of this works without Ahmed keeping your eyes glued to him as he figures out what makes Ruben tick and makes him go forward.
A metal drummer losing his hearing. It’s easy to see why Darius Marder was drawn to the material. But what he and Riz Ahmed do with the story is pure talent and understanding of metal drummers. I don’t know how many shows you both had to see to figure it out, but it was worth it! I hope you got to at least mosh once or twice too, cross that off the bucket list.