Flora and Son is labeled a musical comedy, but it’s much more. Writer/Director John Carney known for Sing Street and Once, shows the evolution of a mother/son relationship that is tamed through music. It follows Flora, a single mom who is at war with her son, Max. Trying to find a hobby for Max, she rescues a guitar from a dumpster and finds that one person’s trash can be a family’s salvation.
The opening scenes immediately identify raunchy rebel Flora (Eve Hewson) dancing with anybody at a club, getting drunker by the minute. Hewson really lets loose with expletives as a character you really want to hate. She is a defiant single mother flailing and failing miserably at having a relationship with her exasperatingly difficult teen, Max (Orén Kinlan). The tension between them is thick.
When Max gets in trouble with the police for the umpteenth time, the constable suggests she find some way to keep him busy to keep him out of jail. He’s lost and puts on ear buds to dive deep into his music on the computer, refusing to share what he’s doing with his Mum.
Flora loves music. (Hewson comes by it rightly as she is Bono’s daughter.) In the film, Flora thinks it might be something for Max. So she finds and fixes up a beat up guitar hoping he’ll play around with it and get hooked. Ex-husband Ian (Jack Reynor) is a rocker who plays bass, so maybe it wouldn’t be out of the realm if he had some talent. Of course, Max rejects it, and her, big time. He thinks she’s nuts!
Drinking wine alone at the kitchen table, she looks at the guitar and curiously searches the internet for a possible instructor… for herself. Carney’s sequence of teachers, one after the other, on the computer screen with Flora’s crass reactions to them is pretty funny. But she finally comes across Jeff (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a has been Los Angeles musician teaching lessons on line.
She flirts while he brushes it off amused, but keeps it professional. The script is well written to show their personalities and life stories as Flora continues taking his lessons. With casual, frank and funny banter, they get to know each other. Carney creates a bit of a tease with their interaction. He has you rooting for them to maybe find common ground and romance. She’s becomes more tame as she gets into what she can do to make music.
Carney creates some predictable threads which include Max getting into more trouble along with Flora’s attempts to reclaim him through music. At the same time she’s finding the chords to her life. The clever technique when Carney shoots scenes pulling Jeff through the computer so they appear in the same room creating music together gives Gordon-Levitt the chance to more fully perform. The actor also gets to show his LA Zen aura whose patience is a calming influence on high strung Flora. She learns respect, trust and friendship along with how to make music.
Flora suggests Max write a song and shoot a music video to win the heart of a girl he’s hot for. Max starts to see Flora differently and as they collaborate, their relationship begins to heal. An original song in the film by Carney and Gary Clark is sung by Hewson and Kinlan. Writer/Director Carney creates a film that evolves the arc of his two troubled main characters. And it builds to a special performance by team Flora and Son which becomes a charming, Irish, contemporary, musical fairy tale.
Flora and Son (2023)
Directed by: John Carney
Starring: Eve Hewson, Marcella Plunkett, Paul Reid, Orén Kinlan, Don Wycherley, Amy Huberman, Callan Cummins, Jack Reynor, Sophie Vavasseur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Morefield
Screenplay by: John Carney
Production Design by: Ashleigh Jeffers
Cinematography by: John Conroy
Film Editing by: Stephen O’Connell
Costume Design by: Triona Lillis
Art Direction by: Anna Carney
Music by: John Carney, Gary Clark
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, sexual references and brief drug use.
Distributed by: Apple (United States)
Release Date: January 22, 2023 (Sundance Film Festival), September 22, 2023 (United States)
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