Flora and Son movie review & film summary (2023) – Roger Ebert

Irish director John Carney has made a reputation for himself as a storyteller with a coronary heart for feel-good, romantic motion pictures, typically utilizing music to unite his characters. His newest creation, “Flora and Son,” shares a lot in widespread along with his hits “As soon as,” “Start Once more,” and “Sing Avenue.” This time, a single mother, Flora (Eve Hewson), struggles to maintain her son Max (Orén Kinlan) out of bother in Dublin. She will get the thought to offer her teenager a guitar, however he shortly refuses it in all his teenage angst. That’s not the music he’s fascinated about creating—he prefers a mix of digital, hip-hop, and pop. So, Flora takes up the guitar as an alternative, hiring an American trainer named Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to show her the chords and the finer notes of making music and writing lyrics over Zoom. Find music, Flora finds her voice, a kindred spirit in her trainer, and a solution to join together with her surly son. 

Carney, who wrote and directed “Flora and Son,” makes use of music within the movie to speak, convey emotion, and incorporate it into the story as a method for characters to attach. What begins as a rocky, failed flirtation between Flora and her music trainer turns into a stunning sequence of a rising long-distance relationship. It’s simply probably the most lovable a part of the movie, and it is like watching Carney play a beloved hit tune: constructing characters who make music collectively and fall in love within the course of. As an instance their emotions, Carney has Jeff seem within the room with Flora, melting away the boundaries of area and time variations for tender moments, buying and selling cheeky flirtatious strains, and staring into one another’s eyes whereas strumming guitars. It’s a candy fantasy that cleverly adjustments proper earlier than the digicam, like a recurring daydream. 

Whereas the performances are effortlessly charming, the soundtrack is extra discordant this time. Nearly all of the compositions are both acoustic (conventional grounds for Carney) or a cross electro-pop rap dance music that do not fairly work in addition to, say, the soundtracks to “As soon as” or the ’80s tribute “Sing Avenue.” Gary Clark, who additionally composed “Sing Avenue” music, tries to include Flora’s love for dance music, her son’s admiration of native YouTube rappers, and Jeff’s extra conventional folk-and-rock guitar background. Because the music high quality slips, so does a little bit of this film’s attraction. 

Nevertheless, Hewson does an impeccable job as Flora, the film’s coronary heart and soul. Her character is a wild little one with a child of her personal, filled with resentment of getting her adolescence lower quick, however the willpower to not let parenting duty decelerate her means to occasion and date after the top of her marriage. Hewson performs Flora’s vary with plenty of coronary heart, electrical vitality, a defiant streak, and a weak aspect we solely see when she opens as much as Jeff. Flora’s ex-husband Ian (Jack Reynor) has moved on with one other girl and is himself a annoyed musician. Flora initially needs to win him again, however the guitar classes successfully present her there may be love for her past her previous.