First off, Rizwan Ahmed is one of the best actors working right now and his performance in this film is gut wrenching, believable, and absolutely stunning to watch as you can do nothing but become engrossed in his acting and ability to make you feel exactly what his character is feeling. It's hard to believe that there was ever anyone else in mind for his role!
The title is an incredibly clever and subtle nod, not just to the fact that he and his onscreen girlfriend are in a metal band but ultimately, the hearing that IS restored through the cochlear implants Ruben is so dead set on getting doesn't sound what he had hoped for and it all has a very metallic, tinny sound to it. It may have helped to restore most of his hearing but it sounds like metal.
And that was the core conflict of the film; Ruben, after learning that his condition will only worsen and is told about the cochlear implants at his very first appointment to assess his hearing loss and despite the fact that the doctor is advising him to slow down and consider his options, immediately sets about trying to afford the surgery, thinking that it will restore his life to "normal" and he can just get back to living his nomadic life on the road with his wealthy-through-her-father girlfriend, Lou (played by the always enjoyable Olivia Cooke). Lou, however, can see the writing on the wall and loving Ruben, wants desperately for him to get better and accept his condition. She is the one who makes the calls and moves to get Ruben into a rehab for the deaf.
Ruben, of course, is hesitant to participate in this because it would mean separating from Lou during his stay and actually having to learn how to live with his deafness instead of pretending like it can all be wiped away magically with the cochlear surgery. Lou winds up taking matters into her own hands and arranges to go back home to France, where her wealthy father lives, and very convincingly convinces Ruben to stay and go to the rehab for the deaf despite her love for him and her own wish for them not to be separated. She loves him, just as much as he loves her, but she knows that he needs this and is worried not only that he isn't accepting the reality of his hearing loss but that he may relapse from his heroin addiction, after having been clean for 4 years and the entire time during their relationship, when she witnesses him starting to smoke cigarettes again.
There is tension between Ruben and the main guy who runs the rehab. And this is due to a very real split within the deaf community about the feelings surrounding cochlear implants and whether being deaf is something that needs "fixed" or is even a disability. Deaf people have managed just fine for many years without cochlear implants and have formed communities and relationships that don't define them as being disabled...so for Ruben to be so gung ho about getting the implants while also attending this rehab, learning how to be deaf, forming bonds and relationships with other deaf people, and then lying and deceiving all of those people to run off and get the cochlear implants causes an irreparable rift between him and the rehabilitation facility, especially the main guy who runs the place. He tries to explain these feelings to Ruben, but Ruben is still so hopeful that this surgery will have fixed everything and still refusing to accept that perhaps deafness isn't as bad as he seems to think it is that the words never really sink in and he leaves the rehab in a very hurtful and curt manner.
After going back to the doctors to test out and adjust his new implants, it is only THEN that he realizes that cochlear implants, while an amazing solution for some, is not the cure-all he assumed it would be and this is the first time he seems to realize that he will never hear again the way he once did, that everything he hears now will be filtered through this metallic, tinny sounding implant, hence The Sound of Metal working so well as a movie title.
Ruben makes his way to France to find that his girlfriend, Lou, looks and acts vastly different than she did when she was living her bohemian life with him in the RV; instead of having bleached eyebrows, her hair is now soft and natural brown, she is living back at home with her father, their relationship seemingly repaired (with her dad even thanking Ruben for being there for Lou at one point), and she has clearly moved on and up from whatever situation she and Ruben were in before. It is at this point that Ruben realizes that because he truly does love Lou, he must let her go and be the woman she was meant to be, not tied or bogged down by him, and that he must deal with his issues himself. He packs his things and leaves while she is sleeping to spare her any further pain and then the movie ends on a rather ambiguous note; we go through portions of hearing nothing at all, hearing things as they are through the implant, and Ruben spends the final moments of the movie looking up at the sun through the trees before the credits roll.
Did Ruben finally accept that his deafness wasn't necessarily the life-ending disability he thought it was? Is he dedicated to working on improving his hearing with the implant? Does he feel guilty over the way he left things at the rehab? Does he feel like he made a mistake by getting the surgery?
I feel like the ending hints at the last of those being true. Perhaps if he had stayed at the rehab and learned to accept his deafness, he would have found that inner peace that the guy who ran the place kept trying to help him find; he kept giving Ruben the tools he needed and Ruben just kept refusing to use them. There was one point where Ruben even realized be could keep time and still play drums without hearing the music and he's teaching this skill to a class of deaf children but again, Ruben's inability to see beyond his immediate desire of getting those implants leaves him unable to fully appreciate all the help that he's receiving and all of the people he's ultimately hurting by making the choice he does.
Additionally, I've got to agree with everyone else that the use of sound in this film was absolutely fantastic and incredibly artful. You very much feel like you are living in Ruben's headspace. At many points throughout the movie, we hear things exactly as Ruben does, whether that means hearing nothing at all, very muffled sounds, or the metallic sound of his cochlear implants and it makes it all the more easy to empathize with his struggle and to perhaps understand his motives and choices even if they aren't necessarily the ones we would choose for ourselves if we were in his shoes.
This was an excellent movie and I liked the ambiguity of the ending. It leaves open the possibility for people to take away from it what they want and as another poster mentioned, depending on your opinions or views on cochlear implants and deafness/deaf communities, it will definitely make you feel something one way or the other.
The title is an incredibly clever and subtle nod, not just to the fact that he and his onscreen girlfriend are in a metal band but ultimately, the hearing that IS restored through the cochlear implants Ruben is so dead set on getting doesn't sound what he had hoped for and it all has a very metallic, tinny sound to it. It may have helped to restore most of his hearing but it sounds like metal.
And that was the core conflict of the film; Ruben, after learning that his condition will only worsen and is told about the cochlear implants at his very first appointment to assess his hearing loss and despite the fact that the doctor is advising him to slow down and consider his options, immediately sets about trying to afford the surgery, thinking that it will restore his life to "normal" and he can just get back to living his nomadic life on the road with his wealthy-through-her-father girlfriend, Lou (played by the always enjoyable Olivia Cooke). Lou, however, can see the writing on the wall and loving Ruben, wants desperately for him to get better and accept his condition. She is the one who makes the calls and moves to get Ruben into a rehab for the deaf.
Ruben, of course, is hesitant to participate in this because it would mean separating from Lou during his stay and actually having to learn how to live with his deafness instead of pretending like it can all be wiped away magically with the cochlear surgery. Lou winds up taking matters into her own hands and arranges to go back home to France, where her wealthy father lives, and very convincingly convinces Ruben to stay and go to the rehab for the deaf despite her love for him and her own wish for them not to be separated. She loves him, just as much as he loves her, but she knows that he needs this and is worried not only that he isn't accepting the reality of his hearing loss but that he may relapse from his heroin addiction, after having been clean for 4 years and the entire time during their relationship, when she witnesses him starting to smoke cigarettes again.
There is tension between Ruben and the main guy who runs the rehab. And this is due to a very real split within the deaf community about the feelings surrounding cochlear implants and whether being deaf is something that needs "fixed" or is even a disability. Deaf people have managed just fine for many years without cochlear implants and have formed communities and relationships that don't define them as being disabled...so for Ruben to be so gung ho about getting the implants while also attending this rehab, learning how to be deaf, forming bonds and relationships with other deaf people, and then lying and deceiving all of those people to run off and get the cochlear implants causes an irreparable rift between him and the rehabilitation facility, especially the main guy who runs the place. He tries to explain these feelings to Ruben, but Ruben is still so hopeful that this surgery will have fixed everything and still refusing to accept that perhaps deafness isn't as bad as he seems to think it is that the words never really sink in and he leaves the rehab in a very hurtful and curt manner.
After going back to the doctors to test out and adjust his new implants, it is only THEN that he realizes that cochlear implants, while an amazing solution for some, is not the cure-all he assumed it would be and this is the first time he seems to realize that he will never hear again the way he once did, that everything he hears now will be filtered through this metallic, tinny sounding implant, hence The Sound of Metal working so well as a movie title.
Ruben makes his way to France to find that his girlfriend, Lou, looks and acts vastly different than she did when she was living her bohemian life with him in the RV; instead of having bleached eyebrows, her hair is now soft and natural brown, she is living back at home with her father, their relationship seemingly repaired (with her dad even thanking Ruben for being there for Lou at one point), and she has clearly moved on and up from whatever situation she and Ruben were in before. It is at this point that Ruben realizes that because he truly does love Lou, he must let her go and be the woman she was meant to be, not tied or bogged down by him, and that he must deal with his issues himself. He packs his things and leaves while she is sleeping to spare her any further pain and then the movie ends on a rather ambiguous note; we go through portions of hearing nothing at all, hearing things as they are through the implant, and Ruben spends the final moments of the movie looking up at the sun through the trees before the credits roll.
Did Ruben finally accept that his deafness wasn't necessarily the life-ending disability he thought it was? Is he dedicated to working on improving his hearing with the implant? Does he feel guilty over the way he left things at the rehab? Does he feel like he made a mistake by getting the surgery?
I feel like the ending hints at the last of those being true. Perhaps if he had stayed at the rehab and learned to accept his deafness, he would have found that inner peace that the guy who ran the place kept trying to help him find; he kept giving Ruben the tools he needed and Ruben just kept refusing to use them. There was one point where Ruben even realized be could keep time and still play drums without hearing the music and he's teaching this skill to a class of deaf children but again, Ruben's inability to see beyond his immediate desire of getting those implants leaves him unable to fully appreciate all the help that he's receiving and all of the people he's ultimately hurting by making the choice he does.
Additionally, I've got to agree with everyone else that the use of sound in this film was absolutely fantastic and incredibly artful. You very much feel like you are living in Ruben's headspace. At many points throughout the movie, we hear things exactly as Ruben does, whether that means hearing nothing at all, very muffled sounds, or the metallic sound of his cochlear implants and it makes it all the more easy to empathize with his struggle and to perhaps understand his motives and choices even if they aren't necessarily the ones we would choose for ourselves if we were in his shoes.
This was an excellent movie and I liked the ambiguity of the ending. It leaves open the possibility for people to take away from it what they want and as another poster mentioned, depending on your opinions or views on cochlear implants and deafness/deaf communities, it will definitely make you feel something one way or the other.