Directed By John Carney

Starring – Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oren Kinlan

The Plot – It follows Flora (Hewson), a single mom who is at war with her son, Max (Kinlan). Trying to find a hobby for Max, she rescues a guitar from a dumpster and finds that one person’s trash can be another family’s salvation.

Rated R for adult language throughout, sexual references and brief drug use

Flora and Son — Official Trailer | Apple TV+ – YouTube

POSITIVES

No director going values music more than Carney, whose entirety of his career has been dedicated to it, and whose latest cinematic achievement imbeds an importance to the universal language that bonds a struggling mother and son dynamic. Far from the confines of melodramatic, Carney cleverly and clearly concocts a series of three-dimensional character studies that refuse to cater to the black or white symmatries of good and bad, instead articulating the spontaneity and destructive efforts of humanity, which not only live and thrive in the distinct shades of grey, but also serve his characters remarkably well beyond just as entertaining facets used for fictional storytelling. He uses a barrage of expressive personality to convey this quality, mostly adult humor that serves the Irish community of the film seamlessly, but also in the second half dramatic impulses, which mature its characters and enhance its stakes naturally towards an unpredictably satisfying climax. Both of these can coincide simultaneously, thanks to Carney’s articulance in how he calls upon them carefully, but separately they reflect the emotional growth of the characters, with the movie’s first half feeling pessimistically caustic, and the second half urgently serious. Aside from thematic merits, Carney’s technical impulses are just as radiant, particularly during performance sequences for long-distance musical partners in Hewson and Gordon-Levitt, who furnish such a warmth and exuding chemistry that you figuratively and quite literally feel like these two are bouncing off of one another from one singular location. Carney accomplishes this of course with the benefit of such intoxicating dialogue, which unravels the lived-in forms of awkwardness between the two, but visually with a series of effortless transitions that take Gordon-Levitt from the condensed claustrophobia of a laptop, to the living, breathing influence alongside his leading lady, where sight and even touch feel like they capably transcend the thousands of miles between them. For those turns, the film is blessed with an energetically blunt performance from Hewson, who seamlessly shines as a complex protagonist with an element of lived-in familiarity to her portrayal, but also in 16-year-old Oren Kinlan, who in his first theatrical film conjures the stuffy signifance of teenage spontaneity. Together, the two effortlessly elicit the arduous relationship that one has with the other, but separately Hewson’s emotional immaturity is matched by Kinlan’s retaliating actions, crafting a household conflict between them that drives all of the film’s other corresponding directions. Add on the warmth and charms of Gordon-Levitt, even in laptop capacity, and you have an explorational avenue that is just as intriguing as the titular dynamic, and one I found myself cheering for emphatically. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly to Carney, the film is blessed with a bounty of original songs that are written and performed by its radiant ensemble. The songs themselves are lyrically clever with most of the words reflecting situations inside the lives of the characters, but the music is intentionally simplistic to the point that it reflects the knowledge of the artist playing it, choosing to go the responsible route with songwriting, instead of turning Flora into a musical sensation overnight.

NEGATIVES

For my money, the film does get off to a bit of a slow start, primarily because the script takes a bit longer than I would expect in conjuring the dynamic of Mother and Son, which the whole film centers on. Beyond an abrupt interaction between Flora and Max during the first act, which essentially goes nowhere, the script doesn’t attempt to evolve or expand upon it from there until the film’s midway point, instead focusing a little too forcefully on the dynamic between Flora and her music teacher, which while charming, isn’t quite the film that we were advertised. If the point was to outline how little of a presence that Flora or Max are in the lives of the other, I feel like it could’ve accomplished this with more time spent conveying it, but instead it doesn’t feel like the most important arc in a film cantering around it. This mismanagement of time carries over to the film’s third act, in which another entirely different arc doesn’t receive the proper closure that it rightfully deserves, after so much time spent expanding its appeal. Part of me appreciates that Carney doesn’t resolve everything, especially since there is an air of life’s unfinished business to a majority of his films, but I feel like a scene involving Flora’s crossroads serves as the exclamation point to the tail end of her transformation, and by not having it, the film ends a bit abruptly and neatly than I wish it rightfully did.

OVERALL
John Carney’s latest music-fueled narrative, “Flora and Son”, strikes a familiar chord with its family-driven drama and Irish side surroundings, but it’s still a tune that’s irresistibly charming in more ways than one. With a trio of exuberant leads, an infectiously endearing original soundtrack, and believably written three-dimensional characters, the film is a satisfying slice of life with plenty to feast on, giving Carney another in a career of greatest hits.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+