The History of Sound Review

★★★★☆

The History of Sound premiere [Image: Getty Images]

This queer love story is a striking tale that will leave you in awe and asking for more. Despite its eminence, some elements of the movie feel half-hearted and are played a little too safely.

Making its debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May, Oliver Hermanus’ period romance first left viewers feeling captivated and emotional. When leaving my local cinema, I felt as though the romance I witnessed was like a stroll through a field on a sunny day, only for it to begin raining heavily while walking back to the car.

Based on Ben Shattuck’s short stories, the film follows the turbulent love of two faintly handsome young students. In 1917, two men from the New England Conservatory of Music, Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) and David White (Josh O’Connor), see wisps of a unique connection through music as Lionel approaches David, who quietly plays Across The Rocky Mountain on the bar piano, a song Lionel’s father used to sing to him.

Shattuck's well-judged writing enables this gay romance to unfold in an effective and balanced style, leaving lots of room for enjoyment for the viewer. Simultaneously keeping their attraction contained, within the borders of their own interactions, leaving little notable judgment from peers. Their love progresses rapidly with each documented moment, while the actor’s undeniable chemistry is fuelled by effective, versatile cinematography.

Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor [Image: Getty Images]

Vagueness is both a compelling feature and a discomforting flaw of this film. Lionel and David’s relationship is an isolated nature of queer relationships in this period, while its intensity builds up to fall flat. Elsewhere, Lionel’s inability to permanently and naturally embed into his changing environments (heightened when away from David) is just one of many fragments of the story that present a foggy, yet consistent sense of heartache.

Succeeding David's return from being drafted, I often felt following events depicted were unfinished or too coincidental. Lionel’s struggles with relationships, change in settings and career successes are short and offer inordinate emotional complexity to the viewers and characters alike and for a movie focusing on music recordings, I wish the background music could have been applied to fill some silences.

The History of Sound was still a great film to watch, a cake unfinished but still charming and delicious. Viewers who let themselves go into the stream of emotion provided will be able to recognise its strongest feature, its flaws, although minor for me, can appear omnipresent depending on how much the storyline appeals to you.