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When Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) and David White (Josh O\u2019Connor) meet over the top of a piano in a Boston college bar, the spark between them is instant. One is a talented vocal student, the other a composition major preoccupied with recording and cataloguing the folk music of rural communities \u2013 their shared passion for song is what brings them into each other\u2019s orbit, and the onset of the First World War is what cruelly divides them for the first time. While David goes off to fight, Lionel returns to his family\u2019s farm in Kentucky, where the work is hard and honest. By the time they meet again, they\u2019re both a little worse for wear. A sojourn to rural Maine to continue David\u2019s folk recording project provides both with a new sense of purpose, and rekindles their tentative romance, but like all great ballads, there\u2019s tragedy on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Oliver Hermanus\u2019 sixth feature takes him to North America for the first time, casting two bona fide heartthrobs: Paul Mescal and Josh O\u2019Connor. When The History of Sound\u00a0<\/em>was announced in 2021 it set the internet ablaze, with many excited about the prospect of a tender gay romance starring two of the hottest young actors in the industry \u2013 but the resulting film is perhaps more restrained and delicate, sparing in its sexual content, for better or worse. In fact, there\u2019s something even a little distant about the film, in which Lionel and David\u2019s romance amounts to a few months across several years, and much of the focus is on its aftermath. The film is more concerned with how this pivotal moment in Lionel\u2019s life changed everything about the person he would become.<\/p>\n Josh O\u2019Connor, seemingly incapable of delivering a bad performance, is wonderful and tragic as David, charismatic and glib and fantastically handsome. Who wouldn\u2019t fall in love with him, or the way his tired smile never seems to reach his eyes? It\u2019s a pity there isn\u2019t more of him, and Mescal opposite is perhaps a little lost as Lionel, despite his best efforts to deliver a serviceable American accent and the charming chemistry between them. There\u2019s just something a little too interior about his performance \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to buy that his relationship with David really is as significant as the film wants us to believe it is. It\u2019s also a little unfortunate for Mescal that he\u2019s outperformed by Chris Cooper as an older version of Lionel; he delivers a searing emotional monologue in the film\u2019s final act which provides some much-needed resonance. But to Mescal\u2019s credit, his singing sequences are quite beautiful, as are O\u2019Connor\u2019s, and the folk soundtrack evokes\u00a0Inside Llewyn Davis\u00a0<\/em>in its soulfulness.<\/p>\n The film feels weighed down by some unnecessary sequences that don\u2019t help to drive the story forward, occasionally forgetting that the crux of the film should be Lionel and David\u2019s relationship and its long shadow; a sharper cut might prevent the film from sagging once the lovers part ways. While comparisons with Brokeback Mountain\u00a0<\/em>are inevitable among those with a limited understanding of queer cinema, The History of Sound\u00a0<\/em>has far more in common with Merchant Ivory \u2013 particularly The Remains of the Day<\/em> and\u00a0Maurice \u2013<\/em> in its pervasive melancholy and sense of profound regret at past inertia. It\u2019s not repression that powers The History of Sound<\/em>, but the tragedy of understanding something far too late to chase it.\u00a0Its buttoned-up nature and chasteness might frustrate those hoping for a more salacious story, but Hermanus and writer Ben Shatuck (adapting from his own short story of the same name) have produced a unique and moving romance for those willing to listen.<\/p>\n To keep celebrating the craft of film, we have to rely on the support of our members. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n