sir_humpslot

This is a very sweet, but not overly-saccharine, coming of age story about a hearing girl trying to get into Berklee Music school to pursue her passion for singing.

The only catch is her fishing family can't understand her dream because, well, they're entirely deaf except for Ruby herself who acts as their interpreter.

Along with a healthy dose of high-school fish out of water tropes, this is the perfect counterpoint of a Sundance indie to the loud, stupid and obnoxious summer tentpoles.

The original French movie La Famille Bélier that it's based on is also worthy of a look afterwards.

WongFu has always played it safe and this is no exception. I only started watching it because others were hyping it on the internet.

It's the same old formula and there's no reason to change anything because they know their audience of teenyboppers. The "relationships" are paper thin soap opera tropes and about as melodramatic as some random girl/guy cry at some stupid misunderstanding but then will course correct and all is well.

For all its recognition of playing it safe for Phil's character, it sure isn't aware of its own irony of playing the same thing as all other WongFu projects.