There’s a moment in Flora and Son when the boy of the movie’s title is showing his mother the music he’s been working on, and he starts rapping for her. What comes out of his mouth is so pitch-perfectly not good in a way that’s unique to teenage boys that I reflexively started applauding at the screen.
It’s rare for a director to be able to show us people as they really are, with their contradictions and hopes and anxieties, and it’s rarer still for a director to do that in relation to how people create art. But John Carney has now done this repeatedly. His approach was most effective in his aching, swooning breakout film Once, but his movies have consistently told us how much he sincerely believes in the ability of music to change who we are, and to help us connect to other people.
Flora lives in a Dublin apartment with her son, Max. Flora is massively irresponsible, and she and Max mostly seem to irritate each other. Max is a petty criminal, who’s one misstep away from juvenile detention, and so Flora gives him a guitar, halfheartedly hoping it’ll occupy him enough that he won’t keep stealing things, but he rejects it as the mostly hollow gesture it is. So, Flora decides to learn the guitar herself, and she gets on YouTube, where she finds a failed musician, with a nice face who’s giving guitar lessons. Max, for his part, does have an interest in music, his tastes are just more electronic.
Carney isn’t afraid to show us people making music that isn’t incredible, because the act of playing anything for another person is inherently brave. We see the subtle ways our characters are finally putting themselves out there, and how they can finally see each other because of it. And we start to connect to them, and we feel a little bit proud when they get to a place where the music they’re making is… actually pretty good. The changes these people go through aren’t enormous, but they are profound, and it makes all the difference that Carney truly believes what he’s telling us.
Flora and Son is on Apple TV+ September 29th.
