Paul Mascal and Josh O’Connor star in this love story directed by Oliver Hermanus.
The Guardian: “Everything here is out of the top drawer of production value: but it never really comes to passionate life.”
BBC.co.uk: “It’s left to the melancholy ballads of heartbreak and grief to provide the piercing emotion that is lacking elsewhere. The most romantic sequence has Lionel and David walking through the woods, harmonising exquisitely without any preparation, so it’s a shame that such songs are missing for so much of this polite and polished film.”
Roger Ebert.com: “Hermanus’ previous film, “Living”—a remake of the Kurosawa classic “Ikiru,” set in London—also featured a stoic figure at its center. But Bill Nighy’s character had the benefit of enjoying a breakthrough, a satisfying emotional arc. Here, the film’s coda merely provides a brief moment of heartbreak (and an inspired contemporary music choice), along with the lingering, wistful melody of what might have been. “
BFI.org.uk: “Always a carefully controlled director, Hermanus here risks ossifying into a specialist in handsome discretion. The period recreation, whether of Oxford, Rome or Boston, is meticulous and convincing, but the travel sequences are in a too familiar, downbeat register of American Rural. David and Lionel may be joyously unrepressed in their time together, and Hermanus certainly does not euphemise the intensity of their love-making; but there is a distinct discrepancy between the pensive elegance of the film’s stylistics and the intensity of the ballads that are so central to the narrative, with their themes of jealousy, grief and murder.”
Variety: “Hermanus is relying a lot on the aura of his actors, but in this case he only gets half of what he needs. Josh O’Connor, as the outwardly brash but inwardly secretive and vulnerable David, makes his presence felt in every scene. He’s a pulsating star. But Paul Mescal, sporting a very mild Southern accent, never comes off like a kid from Kentucky. He’s too formal, too bereft of folksy humor. There’s a stillness to Mescal’s performance that’s just…still. It doesn’t radiate anything. And that’s part of what accounts, I think, for the crucial turning point in the story — the one that doesn’t track on the film’s own terms.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor offer more proof that they are among the best contemporary actors we have in The History of Sound, a resonant account of a tender but too-fleeting gay love affair interrupted by World War I.”
Screen Daily: “Reticence is also the keynote of The History of Sound’s two riveting central performances. O’Connor’s David echoes his turn in 2023’s La Chimera; the boyish charm and the melancholy smile that acts as emotional cover. Mescal has also done buried passion and trauma – notably in Aftersun and All Of Us Strangers – but here, as singer and voice student Lionel, he makes his silences count at least as much as his lines.”
The Upcoming: “In the same way A Complete Unknown and Sinners did last year, The History of Sound continues to emphasise the importance of culture and oral storytelling traditions in music. The sensitive love story at its centre may be a touch too reserved for its own good, but it remains a poignant exploration of the imprints people leave on one another’s minds and hearts.”
The Metro: “That’s a big compliment to Mescal and O’Connor’s natural chemistry, as well as the beautiful, if ponderous, way director Oliver Hermanus frames and shoots their relationship, even if this romance is not dealing with repression like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal’s film was.”
The History of Sound is out in cinemas on the 23rd January.