In the utopian eye of writer-director John Carney, there has not been a personal or familial crisis that cannot be mended through the liberating act of strumming out a few licks on an acoustic guitar. A firm believer in the ethereal magic of a catchy tune to circumvent the shortcomings of conversation and cut to the heart of a matter, characters in a Carney film find themselves at their most candid, vulnerable, and emotionally transparent when working out the lyrics and melody to a song — a filmography structured around the restorative power of making art together. In his latest exploration of this idea, the strained relationship between a crass single mother and the delinquent teenage son she never wanted is saved from imminent estrangement when an acoustic guitar is brought into their shoebox apartment in Dublin. Like his other films, Flora and Son partakes in a delicate balancing act between cutesy and earnest, but tips more towards cloying vacuity.
The elements are present in Carney’s latest for him to rekindle that simple charm that elevated the likes of Once and Sing Street beyond the trappings of rehashing twee platitudes about music’s enchanting powers. Anchored by Eve Hewson’s delightfully brash performance as the trainwreck Flora who makes a meal out of every sarcastic quip, Carney’s breezy script bounds through its setup with a lyrical pace. In a halfhearted attempt to connect with her apathetic son Max (Oren Kinlan), two petty theft strikes deep into a three strike system with the Garda, Flora salvages an acoustic guitar as a late birthday gift to encourage his burgeoning interest in music. Ever neglectful, she would’ve known wannabe gangster Max is more interested in the hip-hop derivatives of drum and bass, grime, and hip house over the soulful strumming of a guitar, but that’s just how fraught things are between the two. Not wanting the gift to go to waste, Flora signs up for online music lessons with Los Angeles native Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) solely because of his rugged good looks, and gradually he opens up her cynical eyes to the restorative powers of songwriting.
For what it is worth (and quite appropriate given the title of the film), the stilted, almost antagonistic relationship between Hewson’s Flora and Kinlan’s Max and their awkward bonding over their clashing music tastes is so naturally touching it could have served as the sole focus of the plot. Adding to it with the sardonic jealousy of ex-husband and semi-professional Ian (an always welcome Jack Reynor) who is quick to mention his band once appeared on the same lineup as Snow Patrol, Carney’s script delivers the laughs and sentimental beats with an infectiously cornball sincerity. In the same assured uplifting tone that propelled Sing Street, it’s hard not to find yourself smiling along say when Flora and Max film a hysterical music video for a sappy Ed Sheeran-esque ballad he wrote for a crush, or as she hosts a party for all her friends just so she can play Max’s swagless rap track “Dublin07.” The relationship between the two is sweet, but still thorny, grounded, and played with effortless chemistry between Hewson and Kinlan to avoid a treacly inanity.
If Carney was more focused and invested on centering this mother-son dynamic as the foundation for Flora and Son — putting it as the proverbial heart of his latest recycling of his well-tread themes on the enigma of music — the film could have avoided the pitfalls of mawkishness.
Representing an unnecessary third wheel to Flora and Son’s most endearing dynamic is Gordon-Levitt’s Jeff the Guitar Teacher, a comically stereotypical portrayal of the sensitive white guy with an acoustic guitar whose entire character serves as a repository for Carney’s most cloying platitudes about the power of music. Seen almost exclusively through a zoom window during Flora’s guitar lessons — outside of the one bit of stylistic direction Carney does which is a repeated pan around the laptop to reveal Jeff is in the room with Flora whenever he is singing one of his schmaltzy ballads — despite Gordon-Levitt’s most rugged, flannel clad efforts this character flat-out does not work. The proposed romance between the two feels dead on arrival due to a lack of chemistry irrespective of the long distance and technological median, and every other exchange between the two devolves into Jeff waxing impotently about the unfathomable beauty of songwriting in tired cliches. The writing is on the wall for this subplot when he first opens Flora’s eyes to acoustic enchantment with a youtube link to Joni Mitchell performing “Both Sides Now” — the second time her classic folk song has been degraded through its inclusion in an Apple Original Film.
There is also a miscalculated boldness on display in incorporating Mitchell’s song because it only makes Carney and Gary Clark’s soundtrack all the more banal by comparison. While there is some enjoyment to be extracted from Flora and Son’s light-hearted skewering of mainstream pop and hip-hop through Max’s clumsy interpretations of them (“I’ll Be the One” “Dublin07”), the soundtrack, a normal a highlight for a Carney film, is uninspired and scattershot. The central duet of contradictions that is the “Meet in the Middle” is cute, but lacking in romantic tension, and Jeff’s soapy compositions about living in L.A.’s Topanga valley only further convince you the character is best understood as unintentional parody. The big closing number “High Life” has some potential as a gritted-teeth anthem for taking on life’s numerous setbacks, but it hastily closes out the film in too neat a fashion with no pomp or circumstance. Plus, the entire conceit of forming a band with her son to compete in an open mic at a bar is sloppily introduced and executed.
The most damning critique one can levy against a John Carney project is that “the songs don’t even slap,” but for the humble Flora and Son it’s sadly true. A film that takes a promising and fresh set-up and gets stuck in the drab mud of stuffing in his weathered themes and story beats. Here’s hoping the next scenario he can introduce acoustic guitar music into bears better fruit.
