Most of us take our five senses for granted. We take in the taste of our cereal in the morning, the sight of a rising sun, the embrace of a loved one, the smell of a fresh bouquet, and the beats of our favorite music, and we never imagine losing any of these simple pleasures.
Sound of Metal, which recently premiered on Amazon Prime’s streaming service, examines the story of one young man who suddenly learns he has to go without the sense of sound.
To tell this story, director Darius Marder, who wrote 2012’s critically acclaimed The Place Beyond the Pines, tapped Riz Ahmed, the 38-year-old British actor whose feats across the pond include his 2010 role in the brilliant satire Four Lions. But unlike many of the other roles Ahmed has taken, this one does not center on his Pakistani Muslim heritage.
He plays Ruben Stone, a drummer madly in love with his girlfriend Lou, who serves as the singer-manager of his metal band duo. The two travel and tour out of their RV, using their musical prowess to heal their wounds — both grew up in dysfunctional families, and Ruben is a recovering addict.
But that prowess is threatened when Ruben suddenly starts to lose his hearing. He visits a doctor and is told that this hearing is unlikely to recover; the best the doctor can do is to recommend an expensive implant that isn’t covered by his insurance. Worst of all, the doctor wants him to avoid all loud noise.
This sets off a personal crisis for Ruben, who can’t bear the possibility of giving up music. But Lou convinces him, after a turbulent outburst, to seek help as she jumps on a plane to stay with her father in France.
That help takes the form of a man named Joe (Paul Raci), who runs a rural community center that helps deaf children and adults learn to accommodate to the world. Although Ruben is initially skeptical of Joe’s instructions, the two eventually hit it off as the drummer slowly learns to adjust to a much quieter life.
But in the back of his mind, his memories of his musical career and Lou persist, and they make it difficult for him to integrate into the community fully. That conflict forms the basis of the rest of the film.
One thing that makes Sound of Metal a standout drama is its clever use of sound design to simulate for the audience what Ruben is going through. Of course, nobody who is not deaf can ever know what it’s like to lose your hearing slowly until you face nothing but silence. But Marder’s jarring cuts between what Ruben is hearing and what everyone else around him is hearing allow us at least a peek into the lives of people who abruptly lose this sense.
This innovative sound editing is paired with capable writing from Marder, who co-wrote the script with Derek Cianfrance (director of 2010’s Blue Valentine) and his brother Abraham. It would’ve been easy to give us the Hallmark card version of this story, with Ruben easily adjusting to the challenge of losing his hearing. Instead, the trio has given us something much more honest.
Ruben is at times arrogant and stubborn; at other times, borderline abusive. It is these qualities that ultimately make the story work. We’re not presented with a purely sympathetic victim who tugs at our heartstrings. We have to settle on a complicated human who has to watch the one thing working for him in life blown away by the sudden introduction of a disability.
Unlike in Four Lions, where Ahmed played a radicalized British Muslim who is plotting a terror attack to avenge the injustices of Western foreign policy, here, he plays a character that just about anyone can relate to. Particularly in the era of COVID-19, we’re all acutely aware that we aren’t invincible. We have no idea if, one day, we will suddenly lose something or someone we’ve taken for granted.
Although Joe offers Ruben practical support — a place to sleep, square meals, and lessons in American Sign Language, for one — the most important lesson he teaches him is that he should come to terms with the reality that life can suck. Bad things happen pretty much constantly. But as Joe relays to Ruben the details of his own tragic life story, it’s clear that Ruben may be being a bit dramatic if he thinks his life is over if he doesn’t get those expensive implants.
Sound of Metal asks us all to come to the same realization as Ruben. As we face life’s trials and tribulations, we don’t have complete control over what happens to us. But we do have at least a little bit of control over how we choose to respond to setbacks. “We’re looking for a solution to this,” Joe tells Ruben, pointing to his forehead, before pointing to his ears and saying, “not this.”
As Joe advises Ruben to sit quietly in a room and write, he asks him to ponder the stillness. Although the word never appears in the film, Joe is asking him to meditate.
“The world does keep moving, and it can be a damn cruel place,” Joe tells Ruben. “But for me, those moments of stillness, that place, that’s the kingdom of God.”
Through Ahmed’s turbulent and realistic portrayal of a man who feels like he’s drowning and Raci’s steady hand outstretched to save him, the film gives us all a reason to consider listening for the stillness in life because sometimes, it’s the most important thing to hear.
Zaid Jilani is a Bridging Differences writing fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and a freelance journalist.
