Sound of Metal: Stillness When Everything Changes (Psalm 46:10)

Ruben is a drummer. His identity, his relationship, his sobriety—all built around the rhythm and noise of heavy metal. When he loses his hearing, he loses himself. In a deaf community, he is taught to sit alone in a room and simply be still. The instruction torments him: Be still and know that I am God. Ruben wants to fix his deafness, restore his old life, return to noise. But the film suggests his greatest healing is not restored hearing—it is discovering that silence is not empty. In the final scene, Ruben removes his cochlear implants and sits in stillness. He has learned what the psalm teaches: sometimes the world we built needs to end before we can hear God.