The History of Sound, starring Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal is a period piece set mainly in early 1920s America. The film follows two men who meet at a music conservatoire falling into a touching romance before travelling around the country to collect folk songs.
Oliver Hermanus’ directorial choices in this film felt uninspiring, the whole thing much like the wardrobe, was beige and bland. Although the chemistry between the lovers was tender and lead to some sweet scenes—O’Connor spraying water into Mescal’s mouth had me beaming at the screen—the film sadly relies on these two actors without much other substance.
It opens doors to interesting themes: the ethics of taking music from different communities, slavery and homosexuality in the 1920’s. Yet, it fails to expand on any of these. Instead creating a fractured narrative which I can only describe as “fine.” Hermanus does the same with his characters, introducing us only briefly to lovers and parents leaving the audience with no emotional connection to them despite being a necessary break of pep or drama in these otherwise dreary two hours. The film felt much more suited to be on Netflix or Prime rather than in cinema.
There were some key issues for me; one being a technical cut at the beginning in which a child actor seems to turn into hunky Paul Mescal in an unbelievably short period of time.
The main issue for me was Mescal’s singing voice. While there is nothing inherently wrong with it, the point of the film is that his character is a talented singer with an awe-inspiring voice, yet every time Mescal opened his mouth, I cringed, as one Letterboxd reviewer put it “dudes be humming.”
There was no substance to this film and, despite the talented duet, it is definitely and advisably a film to miss.
“Paul Mescal at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 2 (cropped)” by Jay Dixit is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
