The Irish director follows up Once and Sing Street with another musical drama.

By Adam Davidson

Published: Friday, 22 September 2023 at 11:44 AM


Following the success of Once and Sing Street, Irish director John Carney hits the right note yet again with his new musical drama Flora and Son.

The film follows single mother Flora, who – determined to keep her rebellious son Max out of trouble – rescues an old guitar from a skip in the hope he will find a new hobby.

When he tells her he doesn’t want the instrument, Flora decides to take guitar lessons herself and seeks instruction from a washed-up LA musician over Zoom.

According to Carney, the central theme of the movie is that music is a life-changing gift we often don’t know we’re being given – and this manifested in his mind as the image of a beat-up guitar in a skip crying out to be rescued.

“I’m a real believer in that,” he told RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview. “Say yes to that filthy, dirty old guitar in a skip – don’t walk past it, there’s something there.

“Not that the universe is telling you s**t, but more just the fun of being alive is to look at these little small details that we look over all the time, and look at them as signs and take them.”

In some cases, musical dramas can be lighthearted to the point they lose all sense of reality, but inspired by the French New Wave and the films of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, Carney aims for a gritty sense of realism with his projects.

“I like the feeling that the actors are creating a tone that is supposed to reflect reality,” he explained. “You are getting quite a conventional musical story with Flora and Son, but it is done like a kitchen sink drama.”

He added: “I don’t know if people want to sit through that heightened reality version in a Hollywood sense, but they do want to feel like they can see their own lives in this musical.”

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With his tone established, all that Carney needed was a Flora to bring this movie to life.

He was introduced to Bad Sisters star Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono) and found her charming, but questioned whether she was really what he was looking for in the character. Yet after just one Zoom call, she had changed his mind.

“She somehow made me feel that if I didn’t go with her then there would be something I would be missing,” said Carney.

“I might get closer to the character that I had written or I might get a darker or more truthful performance or someone that could sing like crazy… but I wouldn’t get what she had.”

He added: “That’s really all that’s happening when casting or connecting with people; it’s not about winning it, it’s about missing the thing that this person brings.”

Hewson created a great impression with Carney because she saw it as a comic role with heart, as opposed to a sentimental role with a few jokes.

“That was music to my ears, because that’s where I come from. I’ll go to the darkest thing or gathering and look for the humour in it – not in a mischievous way, but it will get me through, this type of gallows humor,” said Carney.