“Flora and Son” (2023) revolves around Flora (Eve Hewson), a thirty-one-year-old woman assessing her life and feeling as if she is coming up short. She cannot keep a man. Her thieving, fourteen-year-old son, Max (Oren Kinlan), is running out of second chances with the local police. To get her son back on track, she retrieves a guitar from a dumpster. After he rejects it, she decides to learn how to play and takes virtual lessons with Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), which connects her to a broader realm of possibilities within herself, her family, her community, and the world.
“Flora and Son” is my first John Carney film. I saw this film because the screening was held at my favorite theater, Somerville Theater, with the promise of free popcorn, and it was about a single mother. As I mentioned my plans to see the film, everyone started filling me in on Carney’s career, which made me wonder if I should stay home. Nothing against Carney, but all his prior movies gave the impression of being romantic musicals, which is not my cup of tea. I love a musical, but a rom com musical is not a draw. If I had realized that he was an Irish filmmaker, I may have given him a chance earlier.
“Flora and Son” works because of Flora’s energy and anger. In the opening scene, Carney and Hewson capture the exuberant energy of entering a club and dancing with your friends with a counter intuitive, slow mo, colorful entrance. The electronic dance music is more my speed than acoustic guitar, so it made Flora relatable. She appears younger than her age because of her ability to still go to the club and dance all night. The next day, when reality returns with the sun, the dour state of Flora’s life becomes more apparent as does her immaturity and shallowness.
“Flora and Son” is a great character study about a woman who is very close to hitting rock bottom and realizes it. Regardless of whether the assessment is fair, her class, gender and marital status means that she was there long before her epiphany. Is there any person more demonized than a teen mother or a divorced single mother? Even serial killers have fan clubs. Carney and Hewson play up to the imagined horrors of such a woman: a profane, lascivious, wine swilling, bad mother. She is the epitome of the stereotype of a low-value woman, and those flaws make her easy to cheer on.
Everyone wants to feel loved and have value. Flora derives her value from her sexuality and men’s interest in her, and her instinctual default action is to do what feels good, but as Carney shows this woman who failed to launch, Flora reveals herself to be a more introspective, soulful, and talented woman than initial impressions signal. The transforming catalyst is music. Flora initially treats the lesson like Only Fans, much to Jeff’s consternation, but as she takes the lessons more seriously, their exchanges are a mix of therapy and gushing about their shared special interest, music. Decades of dancing and being married to a musician shows that Flora knows more about music than her teacher expects. As the lessons become mutually romantic, the cheesiness induces eyerolls. Long-distance relationships are unlikely to work. While falling for virtual Jeff is reasonable in a universe where Gordon-Levitt was eminently attractive in “500 Days of Summer” (2009), it still felt a bit too unrealistic and dreamy for such an otherwise brusque, pointed elbows atmosphere. The love of music is the real romance, and Carney softens the initial harsh assessment of characters through their devotion to art.
The film transfers this insight into Flora’s depth of character to her surroundings and the people in her life. Living in a flat in a council estate, i.e., possibly a tenement, Flora surveys girls dressed like “prostitutes” eternally making music videos. It is easy to imagine that if Flora was born later, she would have been one of these barely clothed twerkers, and it reveals a devotion to dancing. As the film goes on, they are just ordinary girls that her kid has a crush on. Even though Max’s father, Ian (Jack Reynor), lives in comparatively better accommodations at a council house, it is still congested, and his gardening next door neighbor has a front row seat to the sparring parents, but they are not just stereotypical exes. Ian may be too full of himself, evokes the admiration-seeking guitar player derided in “Barbie” (2023), and may see parenting as a built-in fan base, but the environment that he provides may be the only stability in Max’s life up to this point. (If he was a better father, he probably should have attempted to get full custody.) Kinlan is a terrific casting choice because he looks like a teenager, not a grown model masquerading for a role.
With a new sense of purpose, Flora sees her son as if it is for the first time. It turns out that he shares his mom’s taste for an electronic beat, and her recent creative aspirations finally make her take interest in Max. “Flora and Son” picks up steam as they begin to create together, and his music and social life blossom with her encouragement, but Carney refrains from delivering a pat, happy ending. Mother and son are too used to making bad choices, but the insight into their motivations make these mistakes feel sympathetic. They reach a turning point when both could throw away all that they gained or cling to it in the hope that it could survive the latest bad turn.
While “Flora and Son” does truck in the propaganda that a good mom is someone willing to sacrifice for their children, it is framed in the broader context that Flora was never a great mom because she never had the tools, and that Jeff’s addiction issues eclipsed his parenting until he learned to stop putting himself first. Also Carney and Hewson never shame Flora for regretting have a child. They depict a complete picture-regret and love can coexist. Flora is not giving up her dreams, just adjusting them. Carney also gives glimpses that even wealthier moms with more resources have similar exasperation over having children.
Carney does pull punches when Ian does something unforgiveable then gives him an easy out in the denouement. If he had just completely disappeared from the story, it would make more sense, but Carney could not resist a happy ending. “Flora and Son” is realistic because I preferred watching the process of the characters making music than the music. The average music maker is not going to be ready for the big time. Also apologies to all Joni Mitchell fans, but this barbarian was not as transported as Flora when she watches Mitchell for the first time. While the friendship dynamic worked because of the chemistry between Hewson and Marcella Plunkett, who plays Flora’s best friend, Kathy, it felt as if it took too much of a backseat compared to the other relationships. It was nice to see a diverse Dublin, but no people of color had speaking roles. Still better than the average Woody Allen movie.
While “Flora and Son” may be too cutesy and manipulative, it ultimately succeeds in charming its viewers into rooting for the underdog characters. It is a feel-good movie with a lot of profanity and a subtle commentary on the role that class plays in achieving one’s dreams. I may be more receptive to checking out more of Carney’s films, but another film reviewing friend suggested “Wild Rose” (2018).
Side note: I’m glad that I didn’t know that Hewson is Bono’s daughter.
