Sound of Metal Is a Strong and Moving Take on Hearing Loss

Sound of Metal, now on Amazon Prime Video, soars past the cliché “disability drama” by placing us right in the middle of the anxiety that comes with someone coming to terms with hearing loss.

Riz Ahmed plays Ruben, a drummer who makes the horrifying discovery that he is losing his hearing. He notices it one morning and can’t believe it, trying to make noises and listen to the water in the shower in hopes that it’s temporary. He plays his drums louder and louder, hoping he can hear the sound more clearly. The sound design reflects this, trapping us inside Ruben’s distorted hearing for quite some time. We feel the unease of his situation and sympathize with him, listening in horror as he can’t embrace his passion the same way again.

Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal. Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Ahmed’s performance is astounding, tapping deeply into a fear that has no doubt crossed the mind of anyone who has heard a ringing in their ears. Ruben is terrified that not only will his music dreams be in shambles but so will those of his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke), with her rising career. She wants what’s best for him, but he rejects every ounce of change that would mean giving up what he loves. He wants to keep playing; when he continues drumming louder and still can’t hear the stage, he denies the cruel reality. Even more heartbreaking is Ruben’s realization that in order for Lou’s career to continue, he’ll have to stay behind.

He finally begins to learn acceptance when he is welcomed into a deaf community that attempts to help him cope. A leader who takes him in is Joe (Paul Raci), a stern but patient man with much discipline and understanding to work with Ruben. One of Joe’s rules, however, is that Ruben remain all but divorced from the outside world: no smartphones and no online contact. To Ruben, it seems as though he’s being further isolated in a prison of little hope.

It doesn’t take too long, however, before he learns to adapt, finding ways to connect in more ways than just the sign language he learns. He warms the hearts of a class of deaf children and takes to their enthusiasm easily when he realizes he can share his love of drumming with them. There are small moments of great connection that are deeply affecting. When Ruben takes a child outside to the playground to cool off, they share a touching percussion duet on a metal slide.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Sound of Metal thankfully avoids Ruben being some stuck-up musician who takes his hearing for granted. We slowly learn over the course of the film about the drug addiction he was able to conquer with Lou’s help only four years ago. To come out of such darkness and only to fall into another pit is tragic and makes one want to pull for him. And yet Ruben’s journey is not so simple as just becoming comfortable with losing his hearing. Despite finding kinship and acceptance, he still strives to raise enough funds for a hearing aid that will allow him to hear once again. But reaching this point is not one of relief, not only because it’s not a magic cure but because some within the deaf community see his expensive procedure as a betrayal.

There’s a bittersweet flow to how Ruben learns acceptance the hard way and tries to find difficult means of coping. There’s an exceptionally heartbreaking moment when he is reunited with Lou and listens to her sing her favorite song. The melody does not come through his hearing aid clearly, sounding tinny and distorted. It feels so unfair, coming on the heels of Ruben finally gaining the approval of Lou’s father (Mathieu Amalric). And yet, by the final shot, there’s a sympathetic comfort in his not being afraid of the silence or a future life in which music doesn’t hold the same auditory appeal.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Director Darius Marder takes remarkable care with his film to make sure it doesn’t infantilize or romanticize deafness, avoiding the melodrama of tired disability dramas. The film does not throw on sympathetic music and watch Ruben from a distance; we get close and experience his fears and anxieties, lingering long and uneasy in the film’s masterful sound editing. But Riz Ahmed also deserves a lot of credit for letting that same level of despair wash over him with so little, his eyes wide and his face frustrated. This makes the film a one-two punch of not only being Ahmed’s finest performance but perhaps one of the most empathetic depictions of hearing loss in film.