Change in film plans for tonight this should read The Northman, but my local cinema for £3.50 have randomly added a last minute showing of Coda to their schedule tonight. So this is the opportunity to complete the 10 films up for best picture in 2022. So yeah lets do this. The Northman will now be next Monday.

Theres not many people in here with me, id say maybe 20, i have the whole row to myself which is a bit weird its a big row too. I am also the youngest person here, probably because all other young people have apple tv but i dont. Also this is a big theatre. ITs not just for movies. Ive seen plays & stand up shows here so its a huge room for a big stage.

Trailers Downton (nope) Father Stu (maybe) some film about a woman & a baby (probably not) & then the unbearable weight, which now ive seen it in advance, is very odd to see back, knowing what happens (shout out to Paddington 2).

& then the film started… & well well, ooooh this is going to be harder to sum up than just this little intro bit that i do here.

So for the first 1h25 minutes this was an average coming of age film, nothing exceptional or ground breaking. They just happened to be deaf, if that makes sense. They were other than that just a normal family, that wanted to grasp what there teenage daughter wanted to do, but couldnt quite understand why. All the standard teen leaving for college clichés were in this & it just went along & i was like so now what when do we get to the point we get to the best picture bit come on film.

& then the last 25minutes & it turned. It was a certain moment, & i cried. I cried a lot & i couldnt hold the tears back & it was a good thing i brought two packets of tissues with me. Oh man. I mean there was someone in my screening (not me i should say) who was proper full on crying like loud weeping crying which was a bit much. Yes i used a lot of tissues for that last 25minutes but it wasnt that bad. But from that moment onwards it turned into this heart-breaking beautiful film & i knew exactly where it was going but it still moved me. It was so sad & lovely.

My sister who has apple tv (i dont) then watched this the following week & messaged to say im sitting here drinking whine eating chocolates & crying at the last 20min of CODA, so yeah its universal that the last 25mins are amazing after an average film up to that point.

Emilia hasa lush voice she really does. Its beautiful (i mean after her dad she should have something) but shes a good lead actress too. She had a lot of work to do to & a lot to learn. The rest of the cast were good too. Im not saying they were epic. I mean there facial expressions were good, but because it was all signed & you had to concentrate on that, there wasnt the delivery if you get me. Apart from the word that is said by one of them later. That hurt, that really hurt.

I now know a lot about the fishing industry & what people do in it & how it works. I mean im not going to go catch you some cod, but ive learnt a lot about it.

I like how they have normal family struggles as well as just the language issue. Could have been easy to gloss over the everyday family stuff. Okay its exaggerated to make them feel like they completely depend on her i get that, but still its nice to see normal family arguments. Although the over the top sex was a bit much.

Her music teacher was brilliant. She needed someone like that in the film just to make her grow, with out it, it would have got lost along the way this film. We needed the music lesson distractions.

All the usual tropes of a coming of age film are in this that are generic. The school bully, the boyfriend who never sees you but then has a crush on you too, the letting people down, the being late & the new hollywood cliché of a teenager having a large lake to escape to. Thats the in one at the moment. I didnt have that as a teenage, nope not here. I mean ive only just got my own bay on the beach which is mine & no one elses, so there wouldnt have been any chance i could have had that to run away from. Also were all just happy for the teenager to just disappear & no one actually leaves her loads of voice mails or txts going where are you.

So this is an average film, which gets its kudos for the last 25mins & for using a deaf cast, & it is really well done. But if you get rid of that 25mins & the deaf family, its just a standard average coming of age film, im sorry it is. This gets glory but Booksmart doesnt…? Its still worth a watch peoples.

In my opinion did it deserve best picture… nope it didnt. But there are worst best picture winners out there than this, in a year of Dune & Belfast was this really better than both of them… NO!