Title – Flora and Son (2023) 

Director – John Carney (Sing Street) 

Cast – Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Orén Kinlan, Jack Reynor

Plot – Struggling with her life in Dublin with her seemingly aimless teenage son Max (Kinlan), single mother Flora (Hewson) takes up online guitar lessons with the LA based Jeff (Gordon-Levitt), lessons that begin to offer her a glimmer of hope in an otherwise gloomy world. 

“It’s not about the genes. It’s about dreams”

Review by Eddie on 31/01/2024

Charming the world with his Oscar winning 2007 drama/musical Once, the film that gave us the overused but undeniably powerful ballad Falling Slowly, Irish director John Carney found himself the go to writer/director of feature films with music at their core, with his following efforts Begin Again and cult-favourite Sing Street earning him further plaudits for producing feel good affairs with killer music too boot. 

Teaming up with streaming service Apple to return to the directors chair for the first time since 2016, Carney comes back to the sub-genre he knows so well with the equivalent of a cinematic hug that is Flora and Son, a relatively predictable and slight feel good dramedy that is never the less one of 2023’s most easy to enjoy offerings and one that gives us one of 2023’s most notable star-making turns thanks to lead (and daughter of U2 frontman Bono) Eve Hewson’s charismatic central performance as the troubled yet lovable Dublin local Flora. 

Appearing to be set-up to follow a well-trodden and seen a million times before path, Flora and Son does a fairly decent job of remaining familiar but also giving us character beats and story movements that ensure Carney’s tale of single mother Flora, her battle with her troubled teenage son Max (a likeable turn from Orén Kinlan), friendship/relationship with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s LA based guitar teacher Jeff and her dealings with Jack Reynor’s ex-partner Ian doesn’t always play out the way we expect, with the addition of foot tapping songs such as Meet In The Middle and Hewson’s enthusiastic performance ensuring that Carney’s film is likely to win over lots of fans. 

We all know the talents of Gordon-Levitt, who could I’m sure even admit that he could’ve sleepwalked through his turn here as Jeff, but after plying her trade in various outings over recent times such as Robin Hood and Papillon as well as well-liked if not exactly hugely successful TV outings such as The Knick and Bad Sisters, Eve Hewson is the real star of the Flora and Son show and I expect much like the early rise recent rise of the likes of Florence Pugh, Hewson is set for major Hollywood attention following on from her turn here and while its not the type of performance that will have Oscar voters excited, it’s undeniably that Hewson’s role in Carney’s feature isn’t one of the years best. 

The perfect slightly above average smile inducer that gets darker at times than you’d expect and more depraved than you might have gathered from a face value judgement thanks to Flora’s wicked Irish humor and loose lips, Flora and Son may not deliver anything groundbreaking but its further evidence that John Carney is one of the most reliably consistent filmmakers working today who knows his wheelhouse as good as anyone else in the industry. 

Final Say – 

Another successful outing from the musically minded John Carney that benefits greatly from one of 2023’s most memorable star-making turns thanks to Eve Hewson, Flora and Son may be slight in many ways but nothing can stop this small-scale but big-hearted affair from being an instantly likeable winner. 

3 1/2 offers of garlic bread out of 5