Bennett Lasseter’s film is an effective commercial disability-drama about a teen who knows he’s about to lose his hearing.

Keean Johnson plays the poor kid in question, whose personal hobbies make deafness even more unimaginable: Marcus isn’t just a music freak, the maker of custom playlists for every occasion, but he’s given to wearing headphones over his earbuds, so he can hear ambient recordings of thunderstorms or crashing surf behind whatever pop he’s cranking.

Out at a rock show with his two best friends (Ariela Barer and Emily Skeggs), Marcus has his breath taken away by an opening act everyone else ignores: Wendy (Madeline Brewer) is a singer-songwriter who touches the high-schooler’s soul, but before he can manage to meet her, he’s unconscious and having a seizure on the floor of the club.

A hospital visit reveals a brain tumor that will have to be removed in a month at the latest. Marcus’s doctor (Bonnie Hunt) tells him that, given the tumor’s location, he’s going to lose all his hearing and won’t be a candidate for any kind of hearing-aid technology. Marcus and his parents accept this news as final, and the boy immediately hears the world in a new way.

“Everything sounded sad — like it was saying goodbye,” he tells us in voiceover, and throughout, the film’s attention to the rich sonic texture of the world may make even a casual viewer reflect on the importance of sound recording to the movies we watch. Marcus decides he should compile one last playlist, gathering 50 exotic sounds on a solo road trip to New York City.

Few cinematic road trips are truly solitary, though, and certainly not ones aimed at teenagers. Marcus literally runs into that singer-songwriter as he’s heading out of town. She jumps in his car, tells him that her crazy ex-boyfriend’s about to kill them both, and urges him to get a move on.

On the road they bond over their shared love of fictional rock star Sylvie Scar and their admiration of Wendy’s vintage Stratocaster. Wendy shares her rock-star dreams while helping Marcus collect recordings of rainstorms and fireworks. She gets him into the kind of trouble road movies demand, including some that tests a skeptical viewer’s patience. It’s supposed to be rom-com adorable, but pulling the fire alarm and setting off sprinklers in a roller-skating rink probably just destroyed the place’s expensive flooring.

Along the way, Marcus bares his soul to Wendy. A tragedy in Marcus’ childhood determined this road trip’s destination and, sadly, New York isn’t going to give either of them the catharsis they hope for. But despite heaping more suffering on its pure-hearted hero than he should have to bear, the film’s misery level never dips far below bittersweet.

(SD-Agencies)