THE HISTORY OF SOUND (2025)

Though slightly overshadowed by award-winning co-stars (Jessie Buckley in HAMNET; Josh O’Connor here), Paul Mescal deserves some kind of special recognition for inducing more well-earned/high-toned tears with these two films than any other actor achieved in 2025.  SOUND, lesser seen of the two, is, in its own distinctively hushed manner, just as moving, just as well-played.  The script, Ben Shattuck’s debut from his own short story, covers three time periods (in chronological order for a change!): the WWI era; a decade later; and the mid-60s, as it follows the relationship of O’Connor & Mescal after leaving a Massachusetts music conservatory when academic-minded O’Connor all but orders Mescal, a more musically gifted new acquaintance, to join him on a foot tour of rural New England recording folk tunes on wax cylinders before the traditional music is lost to modernity.  (A real thing happening in many countries; Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s work in the field probably best known.)  The two men fall into friendship, fall into the rhythm of their subject, fall into bed; a relationship only strengthened by the occasional disagreement.  But the war and their differing levels of ambition & talent will amicably separate them.  O’Connor off to war, but insisting Mescal follow up on his natural musical skills on the world stage.  A decade’s separation from Mescal’s blooming career, and marriage for O’Connor, complicated by echoes of the war, will dissolve (too late) in a flash of recognition on what’s been lost.  And not repeatable on a wax cylinder.  It will be decades before full understanding brings emotional epiphany.  (And not just on screen.)  Director Oliver Hermanus, working closely with D.P. Alexander Dynan, plays his story in grace notes rather than in main themes, emotion inferred rather than underlined.  It can feel like a mannerism at times, but, like the folk song mordants flourished at the end of most melodic lines, things that can sound like blemishes may be part of a precious package.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Similarities to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN/’05 have been noted, but O’Connor’s earlier coming-of-age film, GOD’S OWN COUNTRY/’17, hits closer to the mark.     https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/01/gods-own-country-2017.html