ntering Riz Ahmed in the disability cosplay sweepstakes as a young drummer coping with hearing loss, Darius Marder’s originated as a lightly meta vehicle for husband-and-wife sludge-metal duo Jucifer to be directed by Derek Cianfrance, with whom Marder co-wrote (2012). That the final result is more surprising than the rote uplift narrative suggested by its edifying logline is a testament to both Ahmed’s cagey intensity and the fact that Marder, making his fiction-feature debut here, proves to have sharper instincts as a storyteller than his more schematic partner (who retains a story credit on the film). However, that the film is ultimately as vulnerable to thematic shortcuts and unsatisfying pronouncements as any other disability melodrama—a genre that requires lessons be learned, if not
