EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — A new movie about the deaf community is getting lots of buzz for its realistic portrayal of a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing and has to adapt to a new world.

Sound of Metal effectively uses a large number of deaf actors to portray its characters.

5 Things You Need to Know:

  1. The critically acclaimed drama follows a drummer whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.
  2. The film's world premiere was held at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, where it won the Platform Prize. It will be available for streaming on Amazon Prime starting December 4.
  3. Actor Riz Ahmed learned both American Sign Language and how to play the drums for the film's lead role.
  4. Ahmed said he felt honored to work on a set where two worlds collided. "Sometimes deaf people think hearing people are emotionally repressed because we hide behind words," said Ahmed. "When you communicate with your body, you have to embody the truth, very visually and physically, so that’s what I felt to be true when I was signing more and more, I felt OK. I’m getting more emotional about this than I would if I just used words."
  5. Ahmed said he also appreciates sitting in silence now. "It underlined the importance of finding that stillness, embraced that void, instead of running away from it like we often do, like workaholics in our culture."

EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story indicated "Sound of Metal" was available for streaming on Amazon Prime before December 4. A correction has been made, confirming the film will be available beginning December 4 to stream. (December 1, 2020)