The Irish director follows up Once and Sing Street with another musical drama. <\/p>
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.<\/p>\n
The film follows single mother Flora, who \u2013 determined to keep her rebellious son Max out of trouble \u2013 rescues an old guitar from a skip in the hope he will find a new hobby.<\/p>\n
When he tells her he doesn\u2019t want the instrument, Flora decides to take guitar lessons herself and seeks instruction from a washed-up LA musician over Zoom.<\/p>\n
According to Carney, the central theme of the movie is that music is a life-changing gift we often don\u2019t know we\u2019re being given \u2013 and this manifested in his mind as the image of a beat-up guitar in a skip crying out to be rescued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a real believer in that,\u201d he told RadioTimes.com<\/a> in an exclusive interview. \u201cSay yes to that filthy, dirty old guitar in a skip \u2013 don\u2019t walk past it, there\u2019s something there.<\/p>\n \u201cNot 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.\u201d<\/p> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI like the feeling that the actors are creating a tone that is supposed to reflect reality,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou are getting quite a conventional musical story with Flora and Son, but it is done like a kitchen sink drama.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n With his tone established, all that Carney needed was a Flora to bring this movie to life.<\/p>\n He was introduced to Bad Sisters<\/a> star Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono<\/a>) 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.<\/p>\n \u201cShe somehow made me feel that if I didn\u2019t go with her then there would be something I would be missing,\u201d said Carney.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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\u2026 but I wouldn\u2019t get what she had.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThat\u2019s really all that\u2019s happening when casting or connecting with people; it\u2019s not about winning it, it\u2019s about missing the thing that this person brings.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was music to my ears, because that\u2019s where I come from. I\u2019ll go to the darkest thing or gathering and look for the humour in it \u2013 not in a mischievous way, but it will get me through, this type of gallows humor,\u201d said Carney.<\/p>\n\n