Director: John Carney
A busted guitar pulled out of a dumpster becomes the fragile bridge between an overwhelmed single mother and the teenage son she can barely reach in Flora and Son.
What is Flora and Son about?
Dublin mother Flora spends her days bouncing between a demanding job, a still-immature ex, and a teenage son, Max, who is sliding toward real trouble. Unable to interest him in much of anything, she rescues a battered guitar from the trash and, half out of spite, decides to learn it herself. Video lessons with a laid-back Los Angeles musician turn into something more than a distraction: the instrument slowly becomes a way for Flora to say things to Max that neither of them could ever manage face to face, and a strained household starts finding its rhythm again through music instead of arguments.
Cast & crew
Eve Hewson leads as Flora, balancing sharp comic timing with real rawness, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays her long-distance guitar tutor almost entirely through screen-based scenes. Orén Kinlan plays Max, Jack Reynor appears as Flora's ex, and Marcella Plunkett, Paul Reid, Don Wycherley and Amy Huberman fill out the Dublin-set supporting circle around them.
Context & significance
Director John Carney returns to the musical-drama register that defined his earlier Dublin-set work, once again using songwriting as the thing characters reach for when ordinary conversation fails them. Released in 2023 and holding a 7.0 rating on IMDb, the film runs a lean 97 minutes and leans on original songs built specifically for its story rather than borrowed from elsewhere. Its Los Angeles-via-video-call structure gives the film a more contemporary, post-lockdown feel than Carney's earlier, entirely Ireland-bound pictures.
Where & how to watch
Flora and Son streams on K-Time with a free account login, complete with a Farsi dub and Farsi subtitles so the Dublin slang and the film's original lyrics come through clearly for Persian-speaking audiences. The page itself can be read without signing in; only pressing play requires an account.