'Sound Of Metal', Starring Riz Ahmed, Heads To Theaters In November, Amazon In December

One year after its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sound of Metal is finally being released. The Riz Ahmed film about a drummer who suddenly loses his hearing is set to hit theaters in November before heading to Amazon in December. Instead of a traditional trailer or teaser, a new video below features Ahmed, director Darius Marder, and more cast members announcing the impending release.

Sound of Metal wasn't the best film I saw at TIFF last year, but it was one of the most memorable. Riz Ahmed delivers a career-best performance here, and the way director Darius Marder brings us into Ahmed's character's headspace is often stunning. As I wrote in my review:

To adequately portray Ruben's deafness, Marder and a fully stacked sound department burrow deep into an aural landscape – and lack thereof. Long stretches of the film have us literally in Ruben's headspace, the sounds of the film around him muted, muffled, and altogether blocked-out. Sound of Metal is also close-captioned – not just subtitled – in an attempt to create a film designed for both hearing and deaf audiences. The experience can often be overwhelming – the very first scene of the film features Ruben practically obliterating a drumset during a concert, only to soon give way to scenes scored by ringing and then flat-out silence. With this approach, Sound of Metal has the genuine effect of drawing us into Ruben's world.

In Sound of Metal, "During a series of adrenaline-fueled one-night gigs, itinerant punk-metal drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) begins to experience intermittent hearing loss. When a specialist tells him his condition will rapidly worsen, he thinks his music career — and with it his life — is over. His bandmate and girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) checks the recovering heroin addict into a secluded sober house for the deaf in hopes it will prevent a relapse and help him learn to adapt to his new situation. But after being welcomed into a community that accepts him just as he is, Ruben has to choose between his equilibrium and the drive to reclaim the life he once knew."

"I really hope the film is a film that absolutely anybody can watch from any culture from any community and it's a movie for humans," Marder told EW. "I really wanted this experience to be not one that was, you know, putting on airs or trying to be this, that, or the other thing, but actually just speaking the language that goes way beyond labels, the labels of am I a drummer am I a singer am I a guitarist, am I deaf. It isn't any of those things. It's what's beyond those parts of our identity the human behind them and I think we see into humans all over the movie."

Sound of Metal opens in select theaters November 20, 2020 before coming to Prime Video December 4, 2020.