Sound of Metal (2019)

Director: Darius Marder
Stars: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci
Runtime: 120 minutes

Synopsis: A heavy-metal drummer's life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.

Verdict: Darius Marder's directorial debut has been garnering praise for a while now, and I, for one, had been eagerly waiting for its VOD release to finally see what the fuss was all about. A lot of that praise was aimed at the film's sound design as well as Riz Ahmed's career-defining performance, and while I do agree that these elements are the highlights of the movie, it was also frustrating to see that it didn't have much else to offer.

About a drummer who sees his life crumble when he begins to lose his hearing, the film captures the protagonist's struggle by inviting the audience to experience his condition. We begin to view the world through his eyes, and most importantly listen to it through his ears, an ingenious method to make us sympathize with him and understand where his anger is coming from. The issue I had with that trick, however, was the fact that it was constantly being turned on and off, without ever fully committing to it. And it's when it isn't utilized that you begin to notice how banal the actual narrative is. Riz Ahmed's character's arc is one we've seen tackled on multiple occasions, to the point where you know exactly where it's heading, removing all types of emotional investment in it along the way. While the first act gripped me, what came after it failed to follow that trend and I begin to slowly lose interest in the events depicted, leaving me with an experience that failed to hit the right beats.

Overall, I'd say that had Riz Ahmed's performance not been great and had the sound design not been selectively innovative, we would've been presented with a very average film that would've flown under the radar and disappeared without leaving a trace. This may seem harsh, but I've seen this narrative format be used in movies that ended up resonating on an emotional level in a much more impactful manner. "Sound of Metal", unfortunately, didn't achieve what these movies managed to do. 

FINAL GRADE: 6/10