Sound of Metal - 6 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year Bert Hamelinck (producer)  Sacha Ben Harroche (producer)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Riz Ahmed

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Paul Raci

Best Sound Nicolas Becker  Jaime Baksht  Michelle Couttolenc  Carlos Cortés Navarrete (as Carlos Cortés)  Phillip Bladh

Best Original Screenplay Darius Marder (screenplay by/story by)  Abraham Marder (screenplay by)  Derek Cianfrance (story by)

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

Sound of Metal is the unlikeliest of Best Picture nominees, and is one of my top 10 favorite films of 2020. Riz Ahmed plays Ruben, a heavy metal drummer on the road with his girlfriend and bandmate, when he notices that he has drastically lost most of his hearing.  This doesn't help his drug addiction and miraculously, he finds a deaf sober living community - one which can help him get clean and find his new life as a deaf man.  It is a place for him to learn sign language and deal with his demons.  When Ruben learns about cochlear implants - a very controversial and polarizing technology in the deaf community - his safe place makes it clear that this community is for deaf people only and if he is ready to make peace with his new life as a deaf man, he is welcome to stay, but if not, he must leave.  (For a more in depth view of the two sides of the cochlear implant debate and the discussion within the deaf community, see Oscar nominated documentary, Sound and Fury, available on Amazon Prime and for rent on Apple+.)

I've had a lifelong obsession with sign language and at one time in my life, could easily carry on a simple conversation in sign.  So yes, this movie already had very soft ground for me to like it.  But the performances delivered by Paul Raci (who looks like he has been signing his whole life) and Riz Ahmed bring the excellence of this movie to a whole new level.

Truthfully, when a friend recommended the film, I watched it because he said it was excellent, but I was skeptical.  I have no interest in heavy metal music.  Little did I know that this movie is a character study, it's about transformation; it's about what to hold onto and what to let go of, what to mourn and what to birth, about the difference between "making the best of it" and "making the most of it."  Maybe that's true for most stories dealing with addiction recovery, but this one is special.

If you have time to see only 3 films from the Oscars pool, this should be one of them.

Watch the trailer here.