The History of Sound
Directed by Oliver Hermanus
Written by Ben Shattuk
Starring Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor and Chris Cooper
Classification PG; 127 minutes
Opens in select theatres Sept. 19
Critic’s Pick
There is a kind of irresistible on-the-surface allure to the new drama The History of Sound. It stars two of today’s most buzzed about heartthrobs, Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor. It is being sold as a smouldering queer romance, which should easily tempt anyone obsessed with the two biggest “internet boyfriends” of our era, so to speak. And it’s a Cannes-certified period piece, giving the title a prestige-film sheen. And yet, director Oliver Hermanus’s film is not quite the hot-hot-hot property it’s being marketed as – which is all, mostly, for the better.
Handsomely shot and delicately – perhaps too much so, to the point of the film approaching fragility – The History of Sound is not so much an opportunity to watch Mescal and O’Connor fall into a deep love affair as it is a contemplative, admirably stubborn examination of regret. This is not a film to easily swoon over, but mournfully contemplate.
Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal play Daniel and Lionel, two men who fall in love while attending a music conservatory.Gwen Capistran/Focus Features
After a quick prologue detailing the natural musical talents of a young Kentucky boy named Lionel in the early 1900s, the film settles in Boston, circa 1917, where the now grown prodigy (Mescal) is attending the city’s conservatory to study. Quickly, he meets David (O’Connor), a more well-to-do classmate, and the two begin a modestly torrid affair. After a series of obstacles separates the pair, including David enlisting in the First World War and Lionel’s father passing away suddenly, the two reunite to travel through rural Maine on a unique academic mission: collect, using wax-cylinder recordings, America’s collection of folk songs before they are lost to history forever.
Slowly paced and spanning decades of time, Hermanus’s film is one that values patience and a kind of detached intimacy – it is more about the sentiments and passions left unspoken than it is about any bold declarations. At times, the film suffers the same fate that befell Hermanus’s other period work, including the 2022 drama Living (a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru) and the 2019 war drama Moffie – both deeply sincere efforts that felt stifled by the director’s rather dusty, fussy visual and narrative sensibilities.
Oliver Hermanus’s The History of Sound starring internet heartthrobs O’Connor and Mescal values patience and detached intimacy.Gwen Capistran/Focus Features
Yet every directorial hiccup is remedied by the film’s rigorous, committed performances, especially Mescal and – after a startling generational leap in time – Chris Cooper as Lionel’s older, more world-weary self. The History of Sound might not set the internet on fire, but it will leave a few embers burning in the hearts of any audience who takes the time to listen to its particular song.
