A bit muted, especially for a movie about songcraft, The History of Sound nevertheless quietly builds in import until it reaches a devastating finale, one that musically meditates on the impermanence of love and life.
Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor star as Lionel and David, respectively, Boston Conservatory music students in 1917 whose impassioned affair is interrupted by World War I. A few years later, David recruits Lionel to join him on a research trip recording folks songs across rural Maine. Their romantic relationship resumes and deepens, then once again gets cut short—this time by both societal constraints and the vagaries of the human heart.
Mescal and O’Connor are among the most exciting young actors working today, though only O’Connor rouses what’s on the page into a truly galvanizing performance (Ben Shattuck adapted his own short story for director Oliver Hermanus). His David is an imp, yet one whose smile suggests that his mischievousness masks a deeper pain. To be fair, Mescal has the quieter part, as Lionel is naturally more reserved. Still, they both shine in the singing scenes, in which Lionel and David’s a capella renditions of these folks songs serve as love poems to each other.
In its cumulating anguish, The History of Sound will undoubtedly be compared to Brokeback Mountain, even if the movie lacks the urgent immediacy of Ang Lee’s 2005 landmark. Perhaps this has to do with the early, twentieth-century setting, which Hermanus and cinematographer Alexander Dynan render in respectably handsome tones, which can feel, at times, a bit precious. This is a piercing story, but it might feel even more so if it weren’t quite so venerably preserved.
(9/17/2025)
