Riz Ahmed Plays a Drummer Struggling With Hearing Loss in ‘Sound of Metal’ Trailer

Riz Ahmed plays a self-destructive drummer struggling with the reverberations of hearing loss in the new trailer for Sound of Metal, the film festival fave heading to theaters and Amazon Prime Video this fall.

“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,” Amazon Prime Video said in a synopsis. “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.”

The trailer, like the film itself, features captions, “so that hearing and non-hearing audiences can experience Ruben’s journey.”

Rolling Stone called the film the “perfect showcase” for Ahmed following its premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival: “When the floor drops out from under this musician, all we hear is the ringing, too — this is the go-to power move of Sound of Metal, writer-director Darius Marder’s narrative feature debut, the ace in the ear-hole it plays whenever it wants to pull a viewer in.”

Sound of Metal will first hit select theaters on November 20th before its arrival on Amazon Prime Video on December 4th.