CODA: You’re Entitled to Your Own Life (Even If Someone Needs You)

CODA, written and directed by Siân Heder, is a beautiful, heartwarming coming-of-age film with a happy ending. Not all difficult stories about trying to have your own life in the face of someone who needs you (read: your parents) end with so much understanding, acceptance, and support. It’s hard to break away and be yourself when there are demands, obligations, and the fear that leaving home will hurt the people you love. Many people live with guilt and no real life of their own, well into adulthood—never feeling entitled to be themselves. Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is one of the lucky ones.

Ruby is the child of deaf adults—a CODA—and the only hearing member of a deaf family who makes their living on a fishing boat. It’s hard enough to feel different among kids your own age when you haven’t learned how to talk to people. But it’s even more difficult to be so different from the rest of your family (Mom played by Marlee Matlin, Dad by Troy Kotsur), especially when your older brother (Daniel Durant) is also deaf. You’re the outlier.

Plus, you SING. Loudly. Alone.

You have this great voice you don’t even realize is great—because the people most important to you can’t hear you. Not your singing, and not what you want just for yourself.

And they rely on you in ways no teenager should be expected to handle. They can’t hear Coast Guard calls, warnings of danger, or whether they’re breaking rules out on the sea. Unless you are there.

So really, how can you even think about having a life of your own?

What If They Need You — Or Do They?

Do they really need you? It seems that way. And when someone has relied on you your whole life, it’s almost impossible to question it. In CODA, that’s Ruby’s situation. It might be yours too. Parents who are helpless in some ways, emotionally dependent, and terrified of life without you.

Ruby’s family needs her to interpret. That part is real: they can’t hear. They also don’t feel accepted in their fishing community and carry the belief that others look down on them. So they stay loners. Family becomes their entire world.

Ruby’s parents are as scared of other fishermen as Ruby is of the kids at school. She hides. She runs away—especially when she fears she’s not good enough, like at her choir audition. Or when Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) seems to be shaming her. Is he? Or is it that she feels too different to imagine being liked for who she is?

It’s hard to break away from what feels safe. Ruby struggles. She’s scared for many reasons. But we later see that her family isn’t as helpless as they seem. Her brother is capable, her parents are too—once they start believing that they have something valuable to offer (a fishing co-op that sells directly to buyers).

Ruby has to believe the same about herself. And she takes her first big, scary step: choosing choir because she loves to sing. Even though she runs away at first, she meets someone who wants to help. Someone who sees her.

What Happens When Someone Sees You?

Ruby runs—but not far. Her choir teacher, Mr. Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), reaches out. Tough exterior, soft inside. Just like Ruby. He sees something in her she can’t yet see in herself: real talent.

He doesn’t make it easy on her—but in a different way than her parents. He expects her to work hard to develop who she is. He wants her to audition for Berklee College of Music.

Uh oh. That means leaving home. Leaving her parents.

He insists she take this seriously. And when she does, everything falls apart at home. Her parents get into trouble with the Coast Guard and lose their license to fish.

Ruby is overwhelmed with guilt. Their pleas—We can’t do this without you; you can’t leave us—pull her right back in. She gives up her dream.

Because how can she be responsible for the people she loves getting hurt? How can she choose herself over them?

If It’s Hard to Break Away, Don’t Give Up

It’s hard to break away from a needy or demanding family.

Ruby’s journey in CODA shows us just how hard. And she has a more understanding family than many. She does eventually find her way.

Not everyone does. You might be older than Ruby, still fighting inside yourself for that basic “right” to your own life. Don’t give up.

Ruby is lucky. Her parents do want to understand, even with their fears. They go to her school concert—though they can’t hear, they feel the impact. In one of the film’s most touching scenes, Ruby’s dad places his hands on her vocal cords as she sings “You Are All I Need to Get By.” He feels her voice. He feels her. They finally understand she has something special.

But even if your parents don’t try to understand, you are still entitled to your own life.

You’re Entitled to Your Own Life, You Know

Yes, you are. That’s the message of CODA.

Although you may not feel entitled—especially if you’ve been raised to believe that family needs always come before your own. That you should sacrifice. That you’re responsible for keeping everything together.

It’s easiest when you have parents like Ruby’s, who push past their fears and decide together that letting Ruby go is a “family thing.”

And during her Berklee audition, when Ruby sings “Both Sides Now,” signing the words to her family in the balcony—they finally see. There are two sides. Hers and theirs.

Remember this: your parents have a side. And you have a side.

But that doesn’t mean theirs wins over yours.

You can understand their feelings, give what you reasonably can—but you do not have to sacrifice yourself. No child should have to do that.

Ruby didn’t.

And if you haven’t yet, now might be the time.

Take back your life.
It belongs to you.