her mother she’s joined, Jackie’s response is all
about how they can’t share it: “If I was blind,
would you want to paint?”
Turns out that Ruby, though she bolts from
choir in embarrassment the first time she’s
asked to sing, truly has a voice. It takes a
determined teacher to discover this, and she
has one in Bernardo (a highly entertaining
Eugenio Derbez) — or, as he pronounces it,
Berrrrrnardo — who quickly decides to take
Ruby under his wing, preparing her for an
audition to the Berklee College of Music, his
alma mater.
But Ruby’s private lessons take her away
from the family at crucial times, underscoring
the outsized burden she bears. Her absence
from the boat one day leads to a disaster that
threatens the family’s livelihood. When Ruby
agrees to put a stop to her dream of college,
her parents are grateful but her brother erupts
in bitterness, calling her “Saint Ruby.”
Jones, a British actress, had a steep learning
curve: She needed to master American Sign
Language, speaking in American dialect, and
yes, working on a fishing boat. She clearly
already could sing, though. A climactic
performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides
Now” — we won’t give away what makes it
special — rivals the emotional punch of that
bedroom scene.
If you studied music, you’ll know “coda” has
another meaning — it’s a certain type of
ending to a piece of music. It’s easy to feel
that part of Ruby’s life here, her childhood, is
coming to its coda, especially in a late scene
where she hugs her family and gets into a car.