Riz Ahmed rocks through the pain in moving Sound of Metal trailer

Riz Ahmed rocks out with his ace acting chops out in the new trailer for Sound of Metal.

The Night Of star leads the preview for director Darius Marder's festival breakout as Ruben, a musician struggling with sobriety, hearing loss, and the fraying ties that bind him to the two-person band, Blackgammon, he fronts with his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke).

The clip follows Ruben as he comes to terms with his worsening deafness, nightmarish bouts of ringing in the ears, and his search for a community that understands him.

Speaking to EW at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Ahmed praised the film's inclusion of deaf performers, particularly Chelsea Lee and The Walking Dead star and upcoming Eternals actress Lauren Ridloff.

"Working with Chelsea and the deaf community really opened me up, as well,” Ahmed said, “because something that my ASL instructor, Jeremy, who’s also in the film, told me is that… Apparently, a lot of deaf people say that hearing people are emotionally repressed, right? ‘Cause we hide behind words… whereas when you express yourself with your whole body, it’s just a much more expressive, honest, visceral experience."

Added Marder: "I really hope the film is a film that absolutely anybody can watch from any culture from any community and it’s a movie for humans. I really wanted this experience to be not one that was, you know, putting on airs or trying to be this, that, or the other thing, but actually just speaking the language that goes way beyond labels, the labels of am I a drummer am I a singer am I a guitarist, am I deaf. It isn’t any of those things. It’s what’s beyond those parts of our identity the human behind them and I think we see into humans all over the movie."

Sound of Metal — produced by Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance — is set for theatrical release later this year, followed by an Amazon Prime streaming debut on Dec. 4. Watch the trailer above.

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