Parents' Guide to Flora and Son

This film is a fun juxtaposition of elements, crass and cute, edgy and heartwarming, down-to-earth and dreamy. Mining familiar musical territory, John Carney (Once , Sing Street, Begin Again) writes and directs another vehicle that wants to delve into the difficulty and mystery of songwriting. In Flora and Son, Carney again wishes to explore what makes music good, real, and genuine. For a few reasons, however, Carney doesn't quite reproduce the same musical magic of his earlier films. For example, besides Eve Hewson's Flora herself, Flora and Son doesn't feature as strong a cast or characters as those in Sing Street, as solid a romance or story like the one in Once, or as uplifting a redemption narrative like Begin Again has. But the film is decent and roughly charming enough, with Hewson mainly holding everything together. The supporting cast is modest and makes sense, but sometimes they seem caught between drama and humor, as if they don't quite know how funny to play particular scenes. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Jeff just doesn't have all that much to do here, and his character fully becomes an afterthought by the end.

And for a movie so focused on the impossibility of great songwriting and the mystery and genius of great songwriters, there aren't that many actual songs on full display here. While Sing Street, for example, featured a robust ‘80s soundtrack, only a few songs from musical legends like Joni Mitchell or Tom Waits feature here, in addition to a variety of song sketches from Carney and Gary Clark (maybe three full original songs are featured in their entirety). And yet, while the songs themselves aren't as good as we've heard before from this song-crafting and moviemaking team, Flora's journey from bored single mother to eager guitar playing songwriter is an entertaining one. Flora is a character full of depth and realism, and watching her relationship with Max become stronger and healthier over their shared love of music makes for a winning story, even if Max's turn from angsty teen to loving son happens almost overnight.