As terrified as we all would be if we discovered we were losing one of our five senses, Ruben’s situation is worse. He’s told that the hearing he has lost will never return and that they can only work to save what he has left. That would not be good news for anybody, but it’s even worse because drumming in his rock band is his livelihood and how he makes his living. He learned that he could receive a cochlear implant, which would help preserve the hearing that he still has. When Ruben briefly loses all of his hearing at the band’s next show, he realizes he has to do something. Though a recovering heroin addict, Ruben has been clean for six years. As a one-time cutter, Lou has her addictions, too. They have relied on each other for as long as they can remember in terms of dealing with their demons. The relationship between Ruben and Lou is a healthy one. They are not enablers and are very invested in one another. If anything, they rely too much on one another, as you might expect if you live and work with someone.

Lou finds Ruben a facility where he can get help. Still, in denial mode, Ruben believes that his hearing will magically return once he gets his implant. He thinks his stay in the facility where he will learn to cope with his new disability while also acquiring some sign-language skills. The experience quickly humbles Ruben. His facial features, especially his eyes, tell the whole story. Living a life with limited hearing is now his reality. Joe (Paul Raci – Fighting Tommy Riley), a deaf man who lost his hearing when a bomb went off next to his ear in the Vietnam War and has a history of substance abuse addiction, runs the facility and also agrees to be Ruben’s sponsor.

He tells Ruben very early that his facility is not a place to fix people but, instead, a place to teach people how to live with their disability. Ruben’s anger and depression are present but not visible. He had a single episode of range before entering the facility, a sign that informed Lou that he needed help and that she would not continue the door until he sought help. Instead, he approaches his time at the facility somber and hopeless, still clinging to the prayer that his hearing will return. While this is Ruben’s story, it often feels like we aren’t watching him but instead watching what he sees. He feels like a bystander, taking it all in at the same time as we are.

Sound of Metal tells the story of a man who once was going 100 miles per hour forced to come to a screeching halt. It allows him to appreciate what he has instead of focusing on what he has lost in the process. Sometimes, you have this lifestyle you are so accustomed to that you wouldn’t know what to do without it. But then some circumstance forces you to break away from that routine slowly and makes you stop it altogether. I’ve had six surgeries on the lower half of my body. I’ve had major reconstructive right knee surgery, another meniscus tear surgery on that knee, two more minor surgeries on my left knee, and Femoroacetabular Impingement on each hip. When I had my second surgery on my left knee in 2001, I got a staph infection. That one caused me to reexamine my life. I remember when I was in my four-night stay in the hospital, delirious half the time from morphine, in extreme pain, and just pissed off that this had happened to me.

I wondered if I would ever walk again, let alone play sports. I remember one night, I saw a Wendy’s fast-food “Eat Great Even Late” commercial on my hospital room television and wanted more than anything else to be able to do that again. I just wanted to be able to drive my own car, with the windows down in the middle of a hot summer night, pull up to Wendy’s drive-thru, and order a Dave’s Single with Cheese, large fries, and a Coke. Anything on top of that would be gravy. My new wants and desires quickly changed as my outlook was forced to be altered.

When I had my right hip surgery in 2013, I had been running distance races for about a year and a half. I had just finished my second half-marathon, and I was becoming incredibly fast (at least for me). My times dropped so much that every race I ran for any distance became a personal record. But, similarly to Ruben, I could feel the pain in my hip slowly start getting worse and worse. It got so bad that I had to stop and walk the second half of an 8K that I ran really well. I had surgery five days later. I gave myself a timeline of 100 days off before I ran again. It was during the summer months. Whenever I saw others jogging or running while driving, I would have to look away. I counted the days as I did my rehab. But during that time, I reexamined much of my life and realized that running dominated so much of my free time. I started writing again. I started doing more web design. I invested my time in improving in areas that gave me a more well-rounded purpose. I won’t go as far as to say that I didn’t start running 100 days later when I was cleared, but I didn’t go full throttle like I thought I would.

I appreciated what I had, and being able to run again was a bonus; I wasn’t going to try to take advantage of that by thinking I needed to get back up to my previous speeds as quickly as possible. I think that was the case with Ruben in this story. The further he got away from what had defined his life, the less he felt that he needed to return to that life. That was the goal, of course, but his priorities changed. Ruben was finding his calm. Ruben was finding his peace.

Ahmed starred in the terrific HBO series The Night Of.  That was a mini-series that I watched and enjoyed quite a bit. I remember his character, but I didn’t associate the actor with Sound of Metal until I read that Ahmed starred in both roles. You’ve seen him in many other movies but may have yet to recognize who he was at the time (Venom, Jason Bourne, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Nightcrawler).

Ahmed shines in Sound of Metal and feels like a lock for his first Oscar nomination. His performance is perfect, even if the script may not have been. For example, he’s introduced as a recovering heroin addict, but that never really becomes part of the story. The relationship story with Lou could have been better developed. It was hard to see how much they truly cared for each other and were there for each other during their struggles. I liked how their storyline concluded, but I didn’t like the process that got us to that point. I could appreciate the ending, which made total sense, but I had to assume that their relationship was what it was because that part of the story wasn’t fully drawn out.

Plot 10/10
Character Development 10/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
93%

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