'CODA': A landmark crowd-pleaser for a year light on crowds

The coming-of-age story about the only hearing member in a deaf family “CODA” is poised to be something that’s been hard to find in a year light on crowds: a bona fide, heart-bursting, tell-everyone-about-it crowd-pleaser

NEW YORK -- “CODA,” a tender and stirring coming-of-age tale about the only hearing member in a deaf family, might be the crowd-pleaser of the year, but it was only a few weeks ago that director Siân Heder saw it with an audience. For months after its lauded premiere at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in January (where the movie fetched a Sundance record $25 million acquisition price and won the top prize ), Heder had heard from people who had watched “CODA” at home on a link about how the film moved them, how it made them cry, how important it is. But when she screened it in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the film is set, she could finally hear something else: How big the laughs it gets are. “You don’t really know that those work unless you’re sitting in a room full of people,” says Heder. “CODA,” which arrives Friday in theaters and on Apple TV+, is poised to be something that’s been hard to find in a year light on crowds: a bona fide, heart-bursting, tell-everyone-about-it crowd-pleaser.