With the venerable French-based studio Pathé as one of its producers, the family drama CODA, which screened in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, is the English-language remake of the hugely popular 2014 French film La famille Bélier. It helped kick off this year’s event and won four major awards, including a grand jury prize, an audience award, and another for its ensemble.

Yet, these trophies and the announcement that Apple TV+ has acquired the film for $25 million may overshadow what is a heartfelt, straightforward, and familiar coming of ager. However, with three deaf actors in major roles (unlike in the original movie with only one lead deaf actor) and a story line deeply embedded in deaf culture—the title stands for Children of Deaf Adults—the film departs from the run of the mill. Otherwise, it’s a standard-issue mapping of a teenager’s long road to independence in which the sassiness comes from the parents, not the youth.

Director/writer Siân Heder has reset the story in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Americanized it to the extent that it bears just a trace of its provenance.  Seventeen-year-old Ruby Rossi (British actress Emilia Jones) is like a designated driver in her household. She wakes up at 3:00 am and works on the boat with her older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) and their father, Frank (Troy Kotsur), out in Ipswich Bay. She also negotiates for the family when it comes to selling their catch, as well as in the doctor’s office, where her unexpurgated dad expects her to translate, “My balls are on fire.”

Her day is half way over when she has to hit the books at school, where she occasionally has a hard time staying awake in class. On the first day of the fall semester, Ruby signs up for her high school’s afterschool choir after seeing her crush, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), do so. They’re taught by the snappy, scarf-wearing inspiration-inducing Mr. V., aka Bernardo Villalobos (the dapper Eugenio Derbez). In another words, he’s a Character. To loosen up his group of wallflowers, he chooses “Let’s Get It On” for the kids to sing—a surprising choice, even for a blue state.

When mom, Jackie (the effervescent Marlee Matlin), finds out her only hearing offspring wants to study singing, she sees it as a sign of teenage rebellion, and viewers will have to trust the opinion of Mr. V. that the wispy Ruby has the vocal chops to perform a duet at the fall concert with… you’ll never guess. Her mentor even thinks she has the makings for a degree at Berklee College of Music.

The film dutifully plays out what you have foreseen, how her desire to strike out on her own collides with her family’s needs and wobbly financial situation. It ticks off many boxes of Sundance perennial themes: issues of representation, coming of age in an off-the-beaten-path location, and an underpaid working-class community sagging under the weight of low profits and too much regulation. Though the narrative hits certain milestones by rote, the film comes alive when then the focus turns toward one of the other Rossi family members. Together or separately, they bump up the energy significantly.

This is a family that likes to swipe together; mom checks out the young women on Leo’s Tinder app at the dinner table. The most electrifying moments center on the parents, who have a vigorous sex life, leading to one embarrassing and awkward scene for a mortified Ruby, who often recedes into the background whenever her family appears on screen. Jones gives a quietly focused performance, which succeeds as a balance; she’s more introverted whereas the rest of the Rossis are the life of the party. (Though one is left wondering how Jackie, a former model, ended up as the wife of a crusty fisherman.)

On a streaming service, this family-friendly movie (it would probably be rated PG-13) will be more at home with the likes of Netflix’s The Half of It. It probably would have had a tough road ahead had it opened in theaters, when they all reopen. Even Jennifer Lawrence’s break-through in another teen-themed film, Winter’s Bone, had a limited run at the box office.

Surprisingly, CODA won an award for direction. In the fall concert sequence, when Ruby and Miles sing the duet, “You’re All I Need to Get By,” the extras in the audience look a little perplexed, if not bored, and steal the focus, while some of the actors’ blocking is straight out of Theater 101. But if you count Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” as a favorite, get your tissues ready. When Ruby gathers up the courage to belt this number out for her pivotal college audition—come on, you knew it was coming—the film produces tears and not cringes, ending the film on firm ground.