Writer/director John Carney hits all the right notes with Flora and Son, a film that earns its spot nesting snuggly within Carney’s music-infused projects. Carney’s Once (2007) struck a chord with audiences and critics, capturing an Oscar for Best Song and a Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film. Begin Again (2014) strummed heartstrings while Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley made beautiful music together on screen, and Carney’s (2016) Sing Street earned an impressive 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes along with a spot on the National Board of Review’s top 10 independent film list.
Carney understands the power of music and how it can help heal deep, emotional wounds and bridge the gap between opposing forces. In Flora and Son, the titular characters are the opposing forces, and music transforms their relationship from dysfunctional to harmonious.
Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters) stars as Flora, a young, divorced mom whose days are filled with babysitting for wealthy customers, drinking, smoking, and hitting the club whenever possible. Flora refuses to believe this is her life, yet she doesn’t have a plan to improve her circumstances.
Orén Kinlan is Max, Flora’s resentful teenage son who has nothing in common with his mom. Max has learned to tune out his mom as he spends his days longing for a girl who’s out of his league and stealing from a music store. Max has built up quite the rap sheet and is just one bad decision away from spending time locked up.
Flora seems to believe that giving her son a guitar she rescued from the trash a day after his birthday is worthy of at least a few days of peace at home. She’s wrong, but after a failed attempt at tossing out the guitar, Flora claims it for herself.
That impulsive decision leads to a chance encounter online with Jeff the guitar teacher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mr. Corman) and, gradually, a connection forms between Jeff from Topanga Canyon and Flora from Dublin over Zoom. A connection also forms between Flora and Max that overcomes years of built-up resentment and anger.
Flora is a surprisingly talented singer/songwriter, and Max inherited his dad’s musical talent. (His dad, Ian [Jack Raynor], never misses an opportunity to remind anyone and everyone that he was in a band.) Max’s skills at laying down beats and rapping provide the perfect opportunity for mother and son to collaborate. And in making music together, they blossom as individuals, as artists, and, most importantly, as family.
Eve Hewson, Orén Kinlan, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt hit every emotional beat and Carney’s script never lets them down. There’s nothing manipulative or fake about any of the characters’ transitions. Every moment of understanding or enlightenment is well-earned.
The small ensemble is perfectly cast, but truly, it’s Hewson who shoulders most of the weight and delivers the best performance of her career. There’s an absolutely mesmerizing scene of Hewson as Flora barely paying attention to a video of Joni Mitchell performing “Both Sides Now” and then gradually getting drawn into the words. Hewson’s reaction to the meaning behind the song and the tears that follow make this minute-long sequence one of my favorite scenes of any 2023 film.
John Carney’s Flora and Son will likely find the filmmaker back in Oscar contention in the Best Song category for “Meet in the Middle,” the payoff song that the family – and Jeff the guitar teacher – perform on stage. It sends the film off on a satisfying note and is the perfect culmination to time spent with Flora and Son.
GRADE: A-
MPAA Rating: R for brief drug use, sexual references, and language throughout
Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes
Release Date: September 22, 2023 (limited), followed by a September 29th release on Apple TV+
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