NOTE: While the WGA strike is officially over, as of me writing this, SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, demanding fair wages, better working conditions, protection from AI, among many other important issues that face actors, as well as other sections of the entertainment industry. I am in full support of the strike, and I encourage you to read about it, spread word, and if possible, consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund, which helps financially struggling artists and workers in the film and television industry. Thank you.
Irish filmmaker John Carney has made a name for himself with tackling stories about struggling, broken people finding solace, community, and drive through the power of music. A less forgiving watcher might consider it repetitive by this point, but I would argue it’s become more of a well-oiled machine, with each passing entry in his filmography delivering warm, moving, and achingly human stories revolving around the universal love and collective appreciation for music and the way we use music to comfort our heartaches and make some sense of this wild world that we live in. That continues with his latest, Flora And Son.
We start off by meeting Flora (Eve Hewson), who is not the best at making first impressions. She’s a crass young single mother to 14 year old Max (Orén Kinlan), and more often than not, his presence in their tiny apartment is more of an inconvenience than anything else. She’d rather do anything else than deal with his troubles with the law or him wasting away smoking and playing video games. And the only reason she’s on relatively good speaking terms with her ex Ian (Jack Reynor) is so that she can trash talk his new fling every time she goes to drop off Max.
One day after getting another talking to from the authorities for another offense by Max, Flora figures his energy is best spent on a hobby, and she gifts him a guitar that she stole from the trash and fixed up. He rejects the gift, so out of curiosity, she starts to learn how to use it. She takes up lessons from an LA-based instructor over the internet named Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and her immediate horniness for him sours their initial lesson. But once she settles down, and starts taking lessons seriously, she takes a liking to the instrument, and in turn, finds a way to connect with her son, who has his own – albeit very different – interest in music making.
Carney has a really special touch in his ability to craft characters and moments in ways that feel very grounded and rough around the edges while at the same time presented with a light, borderline whimsical flourish. The struggles that Flora and Max deal with as a low income family living in a rough area of Dublin can feel all too real for anyone who has dealt with similar situations, and their own personal insecurities, such as Max’s awkwardness about his crush on a girl and Flora’s desires to pursue passions that she did not have the opportunity to explore before because of being a young mother, do wonders in adding layers of real experience and emotion underlying some of the otherwise conventional tropes that Carney indulges in.
A big reason why it all works is due to the performances. Hewson – who in doing research for this review only now realize she’s Bono’s kid – does a terrific job in exploring all the flaws and nuances of Flora along with her passions and joys. I’ve known people like her, people who have their hearts in the right place, but due to circumstances beyond their control come across as insensitive, witless, or without care. But Flora is a good mother, one who understands the sacrifices she has to make for her son, even if the temptation to go her own way is really seductive. For better and for worse, they are a team, and there’s no reason why they both can’t achieve what they want while working on it together. Hewson really shines in how she captures all the details and emotional whirlwinds of this journey.
The supporting cast also comes to play. Aside from a few stylistic touches where Jeff appears in the same space as Flora, he spends a majority of the time on a laptop screen, and he’s a charisma machine. For a period, it’s like watching a “Fall In Love With Joseph Gordon-Levitt” simulator. While I don’t think the film has much for him to do other than play a specific role in propping up Flora’s arc, it’s played beautifully. Same goes for Reynor, who delivers a very reliable and believably lived-in performance. But Kinlan as Max is a joy. Ruthlessly foul mouthed and delightfully corny in all the ways a rebellious teenager could be.
Like some of the best pop songs, Flora And Son might contain individual elements and pieces that you’ve seen before, especially from John Carney, but it’s delivered with such effortless precision, it hits the emotional beats with a softness that still has great impact, and the experience itself feels light and comfortable, even as it digs into deeper, darker emotional truths. I had a wonderful time with the film, I was very quickly won over by its characters, and the journey of overcoming personal anxieties through collaboration and connection as opposed to isolation. Though the songs in this film might not be as catchy as some of the bops in Carney’s last film, Sing Street, the scrappy and nakedly vulnerable nature of them are what makes them so thoroughly endearing, and that applies to the film as a whole. You can’t help but get carried away by such a lovely tune.
Flora And Son is out in select theaters and is now streaming exclusively on Apple TV+.