Essay: 'Sound of Metal' (2019)

Everyone is broken in their own special way

Photo: Amazon Prime

I have rarely seen a male character on screen I identify with more than British rapper/actor Riz Ahmed’s Ruben Stone in Sound Of Metal, which is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Ruben is a recovering addict and small-time heavy-metal drummer who suddenly learns he is going deaf. In Sound Of Metal, a man loses his world but gains a moment of grace. The movie is the crooked journey between those two moments, one terrifying and the other poignant and hard-won.

I don’t think it’s the responsibility of art to hold up mirrors to reality. I relate to C-3PO, and I am not a gold-plated protocol droid. One of the necessary pleasures of fiction is the permission it gives to pretend to be someone else.

But then, occasionally, I meet a character I wish was real, a character who reflects a small part of me—bright and distant. I want to hug Ruben and be hugged back by him.

The irony, of course, is that I am well-represented in Hollywood. There are endless movies about men, especially straight white men. But most movie characters who are men are either impossibly beautiful demigods or lovable schmucks. There are two types of men in pop culture: the dreamboat hero and the dopey zero.

However, the zero can sometimes become a hero. And the dreamboat can, occasionally, express one (1) extra emotion, like teeth grinding or staring forlornly into a tumbler of whiskey. But those are the two primary choices.

There are also bad guys but they’re like wind-up toys who make speeches. They serve one purpose — to bedevil the good guy — and anytime a movie villain has moved me, it’s usually lair envy. The alcoholic in me covets getaways where I can shut out the world.

I do often see men struggle on the big screen. I see men struggle with, you know, giant squid and terrorists and external threats. But I don’t see men turn themselves inside out because they have to take responsibility for their lives. Men who try and fail. The main character in Sound Of Metal is an ordinary dude with a small plan. He just wants to travel the country with his girlfriend, rocking and rolling. I was touched by Ruben’s attempts to find a shortcut around his pain. Here’s a man forced to live life on life’s terms. That is my story, and your story, it is everyone’s story. Life has plans for us all.

Those plans can suck.

Sound Of Metal is both modest and profound. It’s a very linear story about acceptance. The first half-hour is the sweat on the safety bars of an old, rickety roller coaster. Ruben is courageous, but it’s realistic courage. There are times in life when you have to decide whether to go on or not and choosing to go on can be the most terrifying choice you’ll ever make. Sound Of Metal isn’t a lecture about people with disabilities. A sort of “oh, look at these poor people!” flick. It’s a quiet love song for those who have overcome and for those who will one day face the unfaceable. A celebration of people doing the best they can, and then that best turns out better than they thought it would.

Director Darius Marder brings the patience of a documentarian to his fiction feature directorial debut — he is in no rush following Ruben from banging away at his drums to panicking as he’s suddenly covered in a blanket of silence. Marder plays with sound smartly, opening the movie with a heavy-metal din and then introducing the audience to different kinds of quiet and soundlessness. The title doesn’t just refer to music, for instance.

This is Riz Ahmed’s movie though and he is riveting. He gives a remarkable, exposed nerve ending of a performance. His Ruben trembles with grief and rage and watching him desperately negotiate with forces beyond his control was harrowing.

You may recognize Ahmed from movies like Venom, or Rogue One, also known as The New Star Wars Movie Everyone Likes. Sound Of Metal is a true showcase for his talents and I hope he gets to carry more movies on his back.

Out of necessity, Ruben finds a deaf community that embraces him despite his reluctance to let them in. The community is led by a wise, weather-beaten old man named Joe, who patiently introduces Ruben to people who do not think their deafness is a disability. Their inability to hear is a challenge and a difference, but all God’s creatures are given challenges and differences, even those blessed with plenty and physical perfection.

Joe is played by Paul Raci, who grew up with deaf parents. Raci doesn’t play Joe as your standard mentor. He is wise, yes, but he paid a high price for that wisdom. The character is caring but cautious. He’s pragmatic about who he can help. His Joe is the type of person you want to meet when you hit rock bottom, someone who is no-bullshit and compassionate—a steady, reliable voice in the darkness. I have been lucky to meet these kinds of people. They save lives.

They saved my life.

Ruben is an addict who forgets that the foundation of his sobriety is radical honesty with himself and others. He resists and then gives in to his new family. He begrudgingly learns sign language with a class of deaf little kids. Ruben is new to a silent world many of these children were born into. There’s a brief scene where he bonds with a boy on the playground, drumming a beat on a slide that the boy can feel, his ear pressed greedily against the metal.

I found myself frustrated by Ruben and rooting for him. I connected to his inner chaos and inability to sit with his thoughts. I have a loud brain, and I suspect many men do. I’m not sure those men can always hear the message that stillness and peace are not only attainable but desirable. There was a moment when he’s trying to reconnect with his girlfriend Lou, played by Olivia Cooke, that I covered my face like I was sitting through a horror movie. You can’t turn back the clock. You can’t only move forward.

Ruben believes he is broken and, at least briefly, thinks he can be fixed. We’re all broken. We’re all split down the middle, or sometimes it’s a great fissure or a delicate web of tiny fractures but we’re all slowly shattering, the shiny pieces falling underfoot, crunching as we walk towards or away from each other. We are all broken, it’s the where and how and the why that makes us special and different and here, my friend, run your finger along this crack down the middle of my heart.

---