A film in which the villain is a failed composer—that hits close to home!  And it’s the premise (roughly) of the 1987 made-for-TV Australian film Coda (1987).  The film is also notable for its use of women in all the lead roles, which would now be a travesty of wokery, but at the time was mildly interesting (it also works because the women aren’t perfectly strong, tough, and smart; the female police detective, for example, seems pretty incompetent, which rings true).  Regular readers know that yours portly is an avid supporter of all women, so you can be sure that I approved of this artistic decision.

Coda is very much a 1980s film—the outfits, the haircuts, etc.  I imagine Australia is one of those countries that is like Idaho:  it’s ten years behind the United States in terms of fashion and pop culture, but it’s still on the same trajectory.  I might be completely wrong about that, but that is the sense I got watching this flick.

Regardless, Coda is an enjoyable little thriller.  It opens with a women being murdered—gasp!—and a goofy passer-by—the lead character’s ex-husband—is framed up for the job when he attempts to offer the dying woman aid.  No good deed goes unpunished, it seems, and the female police detective is convinced the ex-husband is the culprit.  Surprisingly, the ex-wife/lead protagonist doesn’t believe her bumbling ex-husband could be the culprit and begins her own investigation.

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