FLORA AND SON

Flora, a young mother living in Dublin, lost touch with aspiration long ago. She juggles a sustenance-necessitated child care job and a fraught co-parenting arrangement with her unkind ex as she tries to raise her son, Max. Flora and Max’s brash rapport is both hilarious and revealing of their struggle to understand each other — she searches for autonomy and self-love masquerading as selfishness, while his longing for independence and self-expression manifests as delinquency. When the two connect over a twice-discarded used guitar, the uniting power of music brings them closer than what simple proximity can provide. In John Carney’s signature melodic style, Flora and Son is charming, uplifting, and musically dazzling. A high-energy performance from Eve Hewson and her oceans-crossing chemistry with her online guitar teacher (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) bring sweeping romance with an Irish punch to this buoyant piece. A story of how music can re-energize a life and resurrect long-dormant dreams, as well as a testament to the new connective tissues we grow in isolation, Flora and Son is an all-around revelry in the beauty of relationship.