The History of Sound (2025)

This period romance plays around with a few interesting ideas but the whole of it unfortunately ends up somewhat muddled. It’s 1917—at first the picture acts like it’s going to be a coming-of-age story about a musical prodigy, Lionel Worthing (primarily Paul Mescal as the younger version, with Chris Cooper finishing up as Lionel’s older self). Lionel’s musical abilities later seem to be merely the explanation for his worldly mobility, with scholarships and good jobs. As an adolescent Lionel studies at the Boston Conservatory, where he meets David White (Josh O’Connor). Two lonely gay guys, they soon bond over folk music. Lionel is native to Kentucky and knows lots of material from his family and neighbors. David knows lots of material too—he has been on numerous song-collecting jaunts, making field recordings. And it’s not long before Lionel and David are embarked on a song-collecting expedition of their own, with a box of wax cylinders in tow, in Maine. Maine struck me as an unlikely destination for such a venture but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility and in any event avoids distractions by keeping things race-neutral, if that was the intent. The picture reminded me of Brokeback Mountain in the way Lionel and David have such stark mixed feelings about their love affair. Lionel seems to be more accepting of his sexuality but David is obviously uncomfortable. And it’s not just the sex. David has lots of ongoing internal issues that he doesn’t talk about much. The History of Sound dodges around its many cliché traps and is often neatly done, with surprises and various wrenching turns. It finishes with a Joy Division B-side playing on the soundtrack, “Atmosphere.” How you get from Alan Lomax to Ian Curtis is something you might be wondering, and will likely continue wondering. For all the folk music and country blues that dot the soundtrack here, director Oliver Hermanus and writer Ben Shattuck (from two of his short stories) keep moving us beyond what we think we’re going to get. It’s not exactly coming-of-age and it’s not exactly ethnomusicology. It plays a somewhat tiresome fan dance with those elements before settling on further confusion. But the performances are good and the characters felt acutely real to me in many ways. I wanted to like this one more than I did—some parts are very good.