By Rachit Raj

CODA is a great film. It winning the Best Film at the 94th Academy Awards is just a more populous nod to the already established brilliance of the film. Written and directed by Sian Heder, the film is a heartwarming story of Ruby (Emilia Jones), a non-disabled child in a family of four where all others have speech and hearing impairments.

Designed as a simple coming-of-age story, CODA is so much more than that. Hours after it won the top award of the night, I saw people calling this a poor win in front of films that were allegedly better. This made me think of how we can be limited in the way we perceive art. Unlike Dune or The Power of the Dog, CODA does not come with an appearance of academic complexity. It does not greet you, stay with you, like it is a part of something that’s thematically too dense, and hence needs to be taken seriously. It simply hangs out with you, allows you to meet these beautiful characters, and leaves you smiling. And yet, its depth in storytelling and significance in themes that it touches, is as strong as the aforementioned contenders that it powered past, if not more.

It busts a growing myth that great art needs to be serious, carrying a tone of melancholy. CODA could have easily been a sad, soggy affair. But Heder casts Jones along with actors with disability in Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur (both Academy Award winners now) and tells the story with the kind of soft easiness that would make the audience smile throughout its runtime. This also makes the film more accessible to a wider audience, something that cannot be said for a film like Nomadland, which won the award last year.

CODA is a story of persons with disability daring not just to live, but to thrive. They are afraid to stand up against the system, proud of themselves for who they are. It is also about a non-disabled person, a rare minority in a narrative defined by disabled actors, remaining a story of Ruby’s growth as a seventeen-year-old.

The reason people may perceive this film as something that lacks the uniqueness one expects from an Oscar winner (which is a useless burden to carry, to be honest), is because the film intelligently briefs across the usual tropes of a coming-of-age story – self-versus-family conflict, a supportive teacher, a romantic partner. CODA has it all, and yet it is so much more than what meets the eye.

This depth cannot be understood better than in a scene where Frank (Kotsur) asks his daughter to sing a song for him. A song he cannot hear but wants to be a part of. This comes a few scenes after he and other family members have shown displeasure at her decision of wanting to go to college because she is their way to communicate with the world.

In a moment like that, you realise that stories do not need to have dramatic moments, intense monologues, and unforgettable action sequences to be unique. Uniqueness in movies, like in life, comes from small moments. Heder, in adapting this film from the 2014 French film takes an important, and incredible decision to cast actors with disability for the three major roles and that alone makes CODA special. Unique.

There will be people out there who would give compelling arguments for The Power of the Dog, Dune, and maybe even Drive My Car, all wonderful films themselves. But in doing that these people would be limiting the brilliance of CODA to an undeserving victor, and no true fan of inclusive cinema should be comfortable with that.

CODA does something special, and it only sides with the familiar to ensure its act of casting these incredible individuals is accepted in a story made for all, allowing us to be a part of the new era of disability and its representation, as we include actors with disability in our stories that have characters with disability.

CODA is a feat to celebrate for all the right reasons. It uplifts the quality of a community’s representation in art, and in my opinion, there is nothing more extraordinary, unique, and memorable than a film rooting itself in the familiarity of a story, while reaching for a deeper, more conscious political statement. A film is about emotions and sometimes that works better when conveyed with a soft simplicity than an overtly intellectual, niche piece of work that is revered by few and ignored by most.

[Read the author on his blog here]