Expectedly good/unexpectedly traditional. Documentarian Darius Marder makes a confident mainstream debut in this elegantly devised Five Stages of Grief story about a heavy-metal drummer facing profound hearing loss. Left by caring partner Olivia Cooke (his lover & lead singer*) to work thru the crisis at a communal facility for the deaf, he’s able to get past his initial defensive stance with ‘tough love’ leadership and his natural gifts as musician which aid him at picking up language skills and working with deaf children at the adjoining school. But it’s not enough to bring his old life back which is all the impulsive young man truly cares about. Riz Ahmed is pretty remarkable as the drummer. Giving a performance entirely free of grandstanding effects yet not missing any of the rage & passion, right up to (and thru) the film’s honestly unresolved, easy-on-the-uplift, bittersweet ending.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Cooke & Ahmed travel alone as singer & drummer; if there’s a band, we never meet them. Do they pick up local musicians at every stop? And in the real world of contracts & financial commitments, their manager probably would have simply lined up a replacement drummer. Perhaps too prosaic a touch.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/Overcoming Adversity Dept.: In classical music, the best known percussion soloist (really the only percussionist with name recognition) is Evelyn Glennie, a deaf musician who ‘hears’ thru stage floor boards by performing barefoot.
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