A captivating and heart-warming coming of age story, with a perfect, powerful and earnest performance from Emilia Jones. It does a fantastic job of expressing its themes of family and chasing your dreams, whilst balancing it with some hilarious comedic moments. A definitely must see.

Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is a Child of Deaf Adults. Her father Frank (Troy Kotsur),older brother Leo (Daniel Durant),and mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin) are all deaf. She is their interpreter and tries to protect them from the hearing world. She wakes up at 3 every morning to join the family fishing boat as the only hearing crew member. At school, she joins the choir and her teacher, Bernardo "Mr. V" Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez),takes an interest in her. She finds herself torn between helping her family at home or setting off into the world on her own.

This is sweet. It is surprisingly funny. It has family drama. It's a coming-of-age movie. It's an Oscar best winning picture. Every one of those statements are true but the last one leads to a debate. For sure, this is not the most artistically adventurous film. It has an interesting subject matter but it's not pushing the envelope as much peeling back the layer. This film is actually a very audience-friendly film. Years from now, this will unlikely be a big sign post of this cinematic era but it's not going to be hated or anything like that. It's a sweet little film.

So far it's been rare to see deaf characters portrayed onscreen, let alone played by deaf actors. That makes Sian Heder's Academy Award-nominated "CODA" all the more important. Showing the challenges that a hearing daughter in a deaf family faces, it hits all the right notes (pun not intended).

Another good movie about the daughter of deaf parents is the German movie "Beyond Silence".