TL;DR – A profoundly moving and confronting film that explores a man’s life after it has been ripped asunder    

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Awards –

Nominated: Fascinating Worldbuilding.
Winner: Fascinating Worldbuilding.

Sound of Metal Review –

There are times when you have seen an actor nail every role that you have seen them in, but they have only been in supporting roles. So you can’t wait to see someone take a chance and cast them in the lead. One of those actors is Riz Ahmed, and I am glad that I get to see that happen today with Sound of Metal.

So to set the scene, Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) is a musician, specifically a drummer, who is on tour with his partner Lou (Olivia Cooke). One night when he is performing a ringing starts in his ears, but it goes away. However, it continues to relapse till he has only 20% hearing in both his ears. Ruben is told that he has to stop drumming or he could lose all his hearing. He ignores the doctor and goes back to drumming until it is all gone. In a moment of despair, he starts to backslide after being clean for four years. Lou calls his sponsor, and they are able to find a place that can help him with both his addiction and help him work through his loss of hearing. The head of the facility, Joe (Paul Raci) needs Ruben to cut himself off from the world for this to work, which is a difficult transition.