Flora and Son
I think it was meant to channel Roddy Doyle vibes mashed up with Once. Eve Hewson carries this film, along with surprise appearances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt!
Whilst I did enjoy it, I wanted to like this movie more — and sadly the script lets it down. There are great magical realism touches as the guitar teacher leaves the laptop screen and appears in the room. However, too often characters tell us rather than show us who they are and some uglier aspects raised by the script are never fully addressed.
Eve Hewson is Flora, a deeply troubled and fierce woman, solo parenting her son in Dublin. Only she seeks escapism from reality and whilst never addressed here, seems to deeply emotionally neglect her son. Living almost estranged lives, her teenage son Max (Orén Kinlan) teeters on becoming a full blown gangster, lacking purpose and getting involved in stealing things he longs to have. The only things which seem to unite the warring duo are arguing and dance music.
Over time it seems that Flora and her son are very much like each other — she lacks purpose and focus too, behaving in emotionally immature ways, seeking attention and almost a parent to parent her. Max is passed like a parcel between his estranged parents — his dad Ian’s (Jack Reynor) claim to fame is that his band was on the same bill as Snow Patrol, one time. It’s sort of no wonder that Max is kicking off — no-one is listening to anyone else and alarmingly he is caring for and parenting his mum.
Ever savvy, Flora spies a guitar in a skip and claims it. Having forgotten her son’s birthday, seen her skip salvage gift rejected by Max, Flora decides to do something to get attention and be thought sexy by men, again. She will learn guitar using Max’s gift — a lot of Googling later, she finds guitar teacher Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) online and liking the look of him tries to set up dates. Only he is (to begin with) a trustworthy teacher, who doesn’t date his students, though he buckles to not dating long-distance students later on. Better still he sets good boundaries, models healthy relationship and respect, listens and gets Flora thinking about who she is and where she’s going. There are also guitar lessons.
Pretty soon, Flora has progressed from chords to song writing, having spotted the chance to win cash, fame and attention at a local pub. This links her to her son as he too is writing a song to impress a local girl. Cue remixes, mother and son music video filming and a proud parent mix tape party. However Max still hasn’t learnt that crime doesn’t pay yet and tries to nick a keyboard to help him impress the girl through song.
Rather than being the typical rom com, we see more about talking and friendship. It could have been Before Midnight - but with guitars. Flora learns to chat, to think about her feelings and emotions. She supports her son as he faces juvenile detention, tries to make her ex-husband get involved — and the family re-unites, not through Flora’s original plan of sex and love, but by forming a band! Even her guitar teacher joins in remotely. In another nice touch, Flora gets the time she longs for to visit LA through events and circumstances, but chooses her son, rather than herself.
Though compelling, it’s only Eve Hewson’s performance which stops the movie falling heavily into stereotypes. Overall it can’t decide if it is magical realism; Roddy Doyle — the musical; sort of like The Commitments; Mamma Mia gone wrong; another musical, or a movie about a lone parent who is struggling to connect and overcome their own issues to care for others. And the uneven tone/styles mean as a viewer that it’s easy to fall into judgement of the characters and their behaviours — we’re not given a lot to care about. Even Jeff undergoes a character rewrite pretty quickly as having seemed caring and balanced, he starts swearing a bit and reveals how his addiction impacted his own relationships. However he chose to get help for his addiction (and himself) because of the impact that it was having on others.
Deeper issues such as her neglectful parenting style, angry communication style and addictions are swept under the carpet, unless the characters are telling us about them. I was worried for her son for much of the time, and for her. Another issue is that Flora wants to get Ian back — he’s with a new partner Juanita, sweetly played for the few seconds she’s there by Sophie Vavasseur). By the end Juanita has vanished — how does she feel about the family band? We don’t know and perhaps we’re not supposed to care. I like the fact that Flora finds herself by forming a band , not finding a man— and learns to listen to and celebrate her son in making music; but we get there in a messy way. It’s a great shame with some excellent movies out there at the moment such as Aftersun and Scrapper about fathers and daughters, that Flora and Son couldn’t have done the same for mothers and son (even as a musical!)
