‘The History of Sound’ Review: Firing On All Cylinders

In the last year, two fan-favorite gay romances on screen were those of Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in “All of Us Strangers” and Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist in “Challengers.” So, it’s fitting that Mescal and O’Connor, notably two actors who identify as straight, would be the pair to lead Oliver Hermanus’ latest romantic tragedy, “The History of Sound.”

Based on short stories by Ben Shattuck, who also provided the screenplay for the film, “The History of Sound” tells the story of Lionel Worthing (Mescal) and David White (O’Connor), a couple who meet in Boston in the 1920s and spend a fateful winter together traveling across rural Maine and documenting local folk songs on wax cylinders. Despite Shattuck’s somewhat cliché screenplay and a certain monotony throughout the two-hour film, the leading performances by Mescal and O’Connor, along with director Hermanus’ and cinematographer Alexander Dynan’s stunning visuals, allow “The History of Sound” to soar.

Shattuck’s script reveals that Lionel and David both have something slightly “off” about them: Lionel has synesthesia, as he says in the film’s opening voiceover, and David has a photographic memory. Mescal and O’Connor bring these unconventional men to life in vivid and powerful ways. Neither actor is a matinee idol in the mold of the 1920s, but both of them have striking features that are accentuated beautifully by Dynan’s cinematography. Similarly, neither Mescal nor O’Connor are known for their singing talent, but their voices are hauntingly beautiful — especially when in harmony — and their comparative inexperience only makes that talent all the more impressive.

There’s no question that the camera loves both actors, in wideshots and close-ups, and Hermanus spends a long time on the two mens’ faces. A scene towards the beginning in which Mescal sings for the first time features a particularly stirring and prolonged focus on O’Connor, where he can be seen falling in love without saying a word.

Clearly aware of his target audience, Hermanus does not shy away from intimacy throughout the film, but uses it tastefully and without any trace of shock value. Mescal’s shirtless scenes, which expose an impossibly toned physique, draw attention to Lionel’s raw emotional state rather than any aesthetic value. Mescal and O’Connor demonstrate a powerful chemistry throughout the film. A romantic moment early on, in which O’Connor drinks water and dribbles it directly into Mescal’s mouth, has already caught the attention of fans online. In the film, however, it comes across as poetic rather than pornographic.

The film features a host of existing folk songs by artists ranging from Joan Baez to Benjamin Britten. Most of the music is cleverly arranged by Sam Amidon, who manages to present songs that couldn’t have been written in the 1920s without veering into anachronism. While the necessary unity of genre leads to some repetitiveness in the soundtrack, each song is beautifully placed and rendered exquisitely.

Visually, Hermanus and Dynan create a sweeping panorama that thrives equally well in focused moments. The film’s largely rural setting doesn’t offer many opportunities for significant changes in color or light, but it never stagnates for too long.

Shattuck, admittedly, does not shy away from a good cliche in his screenplay. When Lionel is saying goodbye to David after the latter is drafted, he implores him: “Write. Send chocolate. Don’t die.” An intimate musical scene between the two after their first night together also provides some surprisingly heavy-handed foreshadowing about the film’s ending.

Tonally, the unapologetic embrace of romantic tragedy in “The History of Sound” can occasionally manifest as overly self-serious, but it simultaneously has the power to capture total investment in Lionel and David’s love story. The conclusion of the film has Chris Cooper making a cameo appearance as an older Lionel, and while this device demonstrates no shortage of sentimentality, it packs a punch all the same.

Indeed, by the end of the film, when Cooper proclaims, in a line taken directly from Shattuck’s short story, that the folk songs he loves could “put a lump in your throat just by the melody,” the audience may be experiencing a lump of their own. Generations of gay men looking for a film more musical than “Brokeback Mountain” and more mature than “Love, Simon” will likely be thanking Shattuck and Hermanus, along with Mescal and O’Connor, for providing a lovely melody to their lives.