Learning to play an instrument is somewhat analogous to practicing the Faith. Like Christianity and, by extension, a relationship with God, one is never going to know the intimacy it takes to produce anything unless one shows up on a consistent basis. With Catholicism, this means prayer and regular participation in the sacraments. This is roughly what one needs to do with music, although with that it takes getting an instrument and going through the rudiments no matter how tedious they may seem. If you are a selfish person, nothing will get accomplished. That is as true for faith, music, or anything else in life. We see these lessons at work in today’s film, Flora and Son (2023), and I am excited to tell you about the journey it involves.

Flora (Eve Hewson) and Son refers to a young single mother in Dublin whose relationship with her fourteen-year-old child, Max (Orén Kinlan), consists largely of arguments, insults, and mutual frustration. Flora still enjoys drinking, clubbing, and pursuing men, while Max has developed a habit of petty theft that has brought him repeatedly to the attention of the Gardaí. After another incident, a Garda warns them that Max is running out of chances and suggests that Flora find him something constructive to do. Max’s father, Ian (Jack Reynor), a former musician who once enjoyed a small measure of success, lives separately with his girlfriend Juanita (Sophie Vavasseur) and provides only intermittent help. Flora, who has also forgotten Max’s birthday, spots a battered acoustic guitar in a dumpster, retrieves it, pays to have it repaired, and presents it to him as a belated gift. Max rejects it, partly because he recognizes how little thought she put into choosing it. Rather than discard the instrument, Flora decides to learn it herself. Searching online, she finds Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a Los Angeles musician who gives guitar lessons by video call. Their first session goes badly when Flora drinks and aggressively flirts with him, but she apologizes and returns determined to take the lessons seriously. Put differently, she is a bit more forward than Catholic courtship would typically suggest. Jeff begins teaching her basic chords while challenging the way she listens to music. Their conversations gradually become as important as the lessons. He introduces her to songs that move her in ways she does not expect, and Flora’s blunt criticism of Jeff’s own songwriting pushes him to reconsider his work. The two begin collaborating on a song, “Meet in the Middle,” while developing an obvious attraction despite living an ocean apart. The film occasionally visualizes their growing intimacy by placing Jeff beside Flora as they play together, even though their encounters are actually taking place through a screen. Music also begins changing Flora’s relationship with Max. She discovers that he uses his secondhand laptop to create electronic music and rap, something she had barely noticed despite living with him. Max is infatuated with a girl named Samantha (Alex Deegan), and Flora helps him develop a song and shoot a music video intended to impress her. The project gives mother and son a rare reason to work together rather than fight. Flora even shares some music with Ian, and for a brief time the three of them rediscover a sense of connection through something that once helped bring Flora and Ian together. As her relationship with Jeff deepens, Flora begins considering a trip to Los Angeles to meet him in person. She saves money for the journey and tries to arrange for someone to care for Max, but neither Ian nor Flora’s friend can take him. Max learns about the proposed trip and interprets it as another example of his mother wanting to escape from him. Their fragile progress is threatened further when Max steals an expensive synthesizer because he believes he needs better equipment for his music. He is caught, and the repeated offenses finally send him to court. Ian fails to appear for the hearing, leaving Flora to stand beside their son. Max receives a custodial sentence in a juvenile facility, although Flora’s plea helps reduce the amount of time he must serve. Outside the courtroom, mother and son finally drop much of their hostility and embrace. Flora abandons her plans to visit Jeff and instead asks the judge to allow Max to take musical equipment into the facility so that he can continue creating. She also buys him the equipment he had tried to steal, transforming the object of his latest crime into something he can now use legitimately. While Max serves his sentence, both he and Flora continue working on music. Flora tells Jeff that she will not be coming to Los Angeles, and their relationship remains unresolved rather than turning into the conventional romance she once imagined. After Max returns home, the different strands of Flora’s life come together at a Dublin pub. Flora and Max perform a new song, “High Life,” with Ian playing bass and Jeff contributing remotely from Los Angeles.

The performance at the end of Flora and Son is rough around the edges rather than the work of polished professionals, but that is precisely the point. Flora has not become a famous musician, Max remains a problematic child, and few of the problems within their fractured family have been repaired. What has changed is their willingness to listen, contribute, practice, and keep trying together. The group performs under the name Flora and Son, turning the relationship that once seemed to burden them into the thing they are finally willing to celebrate. In this way, the film becomes something that any Catholic can appreciate: a celebration of life. That is not simply this Catholic reviewer inserting his religious take into a story. At one point, Flora admits that everyone had advised her to get an abortion when she became pregnant with Max at seventeen. Because she carried her baby to term, defying the advice of family and friends in doing so, the film can certainly be read as having a pro-life dimension. What is also impressive is that, when presented with the most important difficult situations, she increasingly chooses to put Max’s welfare ahead of her own desires. That is not to say that she is perfect. There is a perception that earnestly practicing the Faith means that anyone dedicating herself or himself to something bigger automatically acquires a sort of perfection that is not only untrue, but unfair. Clearly, Flora is imperfect, to say the very least. She steals cash from her employer to pay for the guitar she intended for Max, while elsewhere the film deals with failures of fidelity and responsibility. Catholic moral teaching does not flatten such acts into being morally identical. Theft and adultery are distinct sins, and their gravity depends on what is chosen and the circumstances involved. What they share is that sin damages our relationship with God and with other people. What God wants for us includes doing more things like showing up for our children and taking an interest in their welfare, which are among the more positive of Flora’s actions. We can over-philosophize God’s will, but sometimes following it begins with the ordinary duties of love already in front of us. There are a few extra steps for a practicing Catholic, to put it mildly, but one can learn something from the main character’s example.

Flora and Son is an example of a movie being a source of unexpected lessons, and that is always a good thing as far as this Catholic reviewer is concerned. Indeed, I would go so far as to recommend this film, though take some of Flora’s behavior early on with the knowledge that it will get better for her.