John Carney’s new musical film “Flora and Son” tries to do two different things together, and the result is rather uneven in my inconsequential opinion. On one hand, we have an engaging drama about one accidental online relationship between two very different characters, and that works mainly thanks to the good chemistry between its two main cast members. On the other hand, we also have a dysfunctional family drama revolving around the heroine of the movie, but this part is unfortunately often distracting while never getting mixed that well into the overall story.

Eve Hewson, an Irish actress who has steadily advanced during last several years since her supporting role in Paolo Sorrentino’s “This Must Be the Place” (2011), plays Flora, a single divorced mother living with her adolescent son in Dublin, Ireland. The opening scene of the movie shows Flora having another wild night at a local nightclub, and it does not take much time for us to gather that she has not been a very good mother to her son. As a matter of fact, her son, Max (Orén Kinlan), does not like being around her, and he prefers to stay in her ex-husband Ian (Jack Reynor) just because his father is less meddlesome in comparison.  

Anyway, Flora still tries a bit for being a good mother to her son, and she has earned their living via babysitting, though she is not exactly a model babysitter as reflected by one brief moment early in the film. When she happens to spot an abandoned guitar on one day, she does not hesitate to take it and then get it fixed for giving it to Max as his birthday present. After all, Max has been interested in music, and Flora sincerely wants to encourage him just like her ex-husband, who was once a promising musician before eventually giving up his career later.

However, Max does not give much damn about his birthday present, mainly because he is more interested in electronic music. Quite angry and frustrated about this, Flora subsequently decides to learn a bit about playing guitar, and that is followed by the amusing montage sequence showing her checking out a series of guitar lesson YouTube clips one by one. While not so impressed by many of these YouTube clips, she happens to notice Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young but retired musician living in LA. Although his online lesson fee is not that cheap, Flora contacts with him anyway, and they soon come to have the first online lesson between them.

While their first online lesson does not end up that well mainly due to Flora’s rather inappropriate behavior driven by several glasses of wine, Flora sincerely apologizes to Jeff later, and Flora finds herself learning more and more from Jeff as she continues the online lesson with him during next several weeks. He may not be a good musician, but he is a fairly good teacher at least, and he makes her more interested and passionate about music than before.

As they become closer to each other despite the long distance between them, Flora shows more of herself to Jeff, and Jeff also comes to show more of himself to her while steadily being tactful with Flora’s playfully flirtatious attitude. He presents a little song written by him some time ago, and, though she is still a novice in terms of musical talent, Flora sees the considerable possibility in his song. While his song is not that good, she feels that it can be improved here and there, and Jeff certainly appreciates her feedback as gradually finding his old passion rejuvenated thanks to her.

This part of the story works mainly thanks to the effortless interactions between Hewson and her co-star. Although his performance is often confined in the monitor of Flora’s laptop, Joseph Gordon-Levitt flawlessly interacts with his co-start throughout their several key scenes, and that is the main reason why we do not have any problem with Flora frequently imagining Jeff being right next to her during their online lessons.

However, the subplot about Flora’s troubled relationship with her son is relatively less engaging due to several plot contrivances. Despite Orén Kinlan’s earnest efforts, Max is not developed as well as Flora or Jeff, and his relationship with Flora often fluctuates between two opposite ends a little too jarringly. When Max lets Flora participate in his little musical project, things seem to get better for both of them, but then the plot throws another conflict between them later in the story, and the following resolution feels contrived instead of being organically developed from the story. In addition, Jack Reynor, who was incidentally terrific in Carney’s previous film “Sing Street” (2016), does not have much to do as being stuck in his thankless supporting role, though he and Hewson has a little naughty scene showing how their characters still care about each other their estranged relationship.

In conclusion, “Flora and Son” is not so satisfying compared to Carney’s several previous films including “Once” (2007), which is incidentally his best work to date. Sure, it does not disappoint us in case of serving its big musical finale as expected, and the original songs by Carney and his co-composer Gary Clark are mostly solid, but I still think the movie could be more improved in terms of story and characters. Anyway, I will not stop you from watching it, but I would rather recommend you to watch “Once” or “Sing Street” first if you have not seen either of them yet, and you may thank me for that later.