Riz Ahmed

SOUND OF METAL: seeking anything but stillness

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Riz Ahmed in SOUND OF METAL

In Sound of Metal, Ruben (Riz Ahmed) is a heavy metal drummer who suffers immediate and severe hearing loss, complicated because he’s also an addict who has been clean for an uneasy four years. He and his guitarist girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) have been barnstorming through a series of one-nght engagements in their Airstream RV. Ruben is emotionally devastated, and Lou, fearing his relapse, drops him off with drug counselor Joe (Paul Raci) at a twelve-step residence within an all-deaf community.

Ruben may not be using, but he may not be “in recovery”, either. His sobriety hangs on a scaffold of performance, Lou, healthy exercise and constant travel. When his musicianship is snatched away by hearing loss, he panics. The very idea of deafness paralyzes Ruben with terror.

Ruben cycles through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, escape and resistance. Will he get to acceptance and redemption? Joe tells Ruben that he needs to attain the ability to sit with himself in stillness, but Ruben wants anything but that.

Sound of Metal is a super intense ride, but there’s a payoff. The powerful ending is perfect. Director and co-writer Darius Marder follows Billy Wilder’s advice – don’t stick around.

Riz Ahmed’s totally committed and gripping performance as Ruben will likely garner him an Oscar nod. In thinking about his performance days later, I realized that Ahmed was convincing as Ruben played heavy metal, as he veered in desperation and as he mentored deaf children with gentleness and humor.

At one point, I said, “he’s acting just like an addict” seconds before Joe says something like “From where I sit, you’re acting like an addict“.

Ahmed is one of those actors who is good in everything he’s in, whether it’s a broad comedy (Four Lions), a political drama The Reluctant Fundamentalist or a psychological thriller (Nightcrawler and Una}.

Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke in SOUND OF METAL

Olivia Cooke, so good in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Thoroughbreds, is okay here as Lou. In the first part of the movie, she’s unrecognizable with unflattering bleached eyebrows.

Paul Raci, an actor who became fluent in ASL to communicate with his deaf parents, is just a perfect delight as Joe. I’m suspecting that this character actor/musician (he has a Black Sabbath tribute band) will get more movie work after this turn.

The French actor/director Mathieu Amalric is absolutely superb as Lou’s father. Amalric is a big deal actor who is cast in a lot of prestige films (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and I am usually indifferent to him. But here, he absolutely nails a character who is comfortable in his own skin, wise enough to discern what is going on with others less experienced than he and willing, with patience and gentleness, to let life play out. His character is a guy who probably hasn’t gotten to where he is by being kind, so his kindness is a choice.

The brilliant, Oscar-deserving sound design brings us to experience what Ruben can hear and not hear. Make sure that you watch this film on a system or device with excellent sound. Walter Murch will appreciate this movie (which is very high praise from me.).

Sound of Metal is one of my Best Movies of 2020. It is streaming on Amazon (included with Prime).

Stream of the Week: NIGHTCRAWLER – Gyllenhaal finally plays 100% psycho

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Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER
Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER

The all-around outstanding actor Jake Gyllenhaal excels at playing guys who are just a little too obsessive (Zodiac, Prisoners, Enemy) to let you get comfortable with them.  In the thriller Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal gets to play a 100% psycho.  His character is seriously twisted, but in that high functioning way so the other characters don’t suspect it until IT’S TOO LATE.

Gyllenhaal’s bug eyes come in handy in playing the ever-too-intense Lou Bloom, a hustler who talks like a super-caffeinated sales guy, full of the argot of self-help and inspirational speakers.  His bromides about success seem mainstream, but his hyper affect puts off regular folks.  He’s thieving copper when he sees an opportunity to turn himself into a free-lance video journalist.  Nightcrawler is an acid commentary on the TV news world, and Lou has finally found an arena where being balanced is not an asset.

In fact, a cynical TV producer (Rene Russo) finds Lou’s intrusiveness and utter disregard for social boundaries to be helpful.  When placing her order with Lou, she can be entirely unfiltered: “What we re looking for is a woman running down the street with her throat cut”, preferably a “White well-off victim”.

Riz Ahmed, so compelling as The Reluctant Fundamentalist
is unrecognizable here as Lou’s tweaked and shifty homeless assistant Rick.  It’s an effective transformation, and it’s equally great not to see Ahmed stuck playing a terrorist again.

Nightcrawler is successful both as a biting satire and as a charter-driven thriller.  You can stream Nightcrawler from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu and rent it on DirecTV PPV.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist: a thriller with an intense star (but with Kate Hudson, too)

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THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

Director Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) brings the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist to the screen.  A young Pakistani man flourishes at Princeton and on Wall Street, and he becomes an American Master of the Universe.  But then September 11 changes his world, as Americans reacting and overreacting to terror start treating him badly.  Suddenly, he no longer sees a fit with his American girlfriend, a flighty, overprivileged artist.  He returns to Pakistan to teach in a university, and becomes an intellectual leader for Pakistanis seeking to resist the West.  The movie becomes a thriller when the question arises, has he become a terrorist? 

The thriller works – if you haven’t read the novel, you don’t know whether the guy we’ve been rooting for is or is not a terrorist until the final minutes.  The best thing about the movie is the remarkably intense performance of British actor Riz Ahmed as the protagonist.  Ahmed is a compelling screen presence, and he clearly has impressive acting range when you contrast his hyper-alert role here with the dim terrorist he played in the hilarious terrorist parody Four Lions.  As one would expect, Liev Schreiber is also excellent as the guy who must determine whether Ahmed has become a terrorist. 

What didn’t work for me?  First there was the odd choice of Kate Hudson as the girlfriend.  The character is just too vapid to captivate a Wall Street whiz kid, and Hudson just doesn’t project the sensuality to make up the difference for a guy in his early 20s. 

The story also suggests that non-violent, democratic nationalism can have widespread appeal in Pakistan, and, while I would hope that Pakistanis embrace that path, I’m not sure that it’s a likely outcome. 

If you need a sermon on the blowback from our War on Terror,  then you can sit in the pew for The Reluctant Fundamentalist.  But, for an ambiguous thriller, Homeland is a better choice.