10 Movies That Ingeniously Subverted Expectations

Again, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for 2020's Sound of Metal. If you haven't watched it yet and don't wish to be spoiled, best go ahead and do that now.

Darius Marder's Oscar-winning masterwork Sound of Metal is focused on the efforts of drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) to salvage what little remains of his fast-degenerating hearing.

It is a deeply affecting film albeit one which could so easily have gone a far more conventionally sentimental, Oscar-baiting route. Seemingly in reference to this, the film even teases a few potential melodramatic off-ramps which it ultimately never engages with.

For starters, recovering addict Ruben never once relapses on his drug use, which would've been the most trite and obvious narrative hurdle Marder could've thrown in.

Beyond that, shortly after joining the shelter for deaf addicts, Ruben is introduced to Diane (Lauren Ridloff), a beautiful teacher working at the shelter.

Though the immediate implication seems to be that Ruben will start a relationship with this woman, again, it never happens.

And finally, when Ruben prepares to sell his musical equipment in order to help fund his cochlear implants, there's a lingering feeling that the equipment might get stolen from his RV before he's able to. But thankfully, that's not the case.

All in all, it's easy to see how studio notes could've turned Sound of Metal into a far more conventional film, but thankfully it instead kicked the wearisome subplots to the curb and forged ahead with something far more truthful and affecting.