Stream It Or Skip It?

The History of Sound (now streaming on MUBI) unites two burgeoning stars (and sex symbols) in Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal, who play lovers in an era when two men kissing was something to be shunned and hidden. O’Connor we know primarily from The Crown, which earned him an Emmy, and Challengers, which should’ve earned him an Oscar nomination; his robust 2025 includes anchoring Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind and the upcoming third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man. Mescal broke through as a movie star with the one-two emotional punch of Aftersun and All of Us Strangers, before cracking the mainstream with a starring role in Gladiator II; he adds another prestige feather to his cap this year thanks to Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. Point being, these two sure seem primed to make The History of Sound – directed by Oliver Hermanus (Living), adapting short stories by Ben Shattuck – a must-see. In theory, at least. 

The Gist: Chris Cooper narrates as the old-man version of Lionel Worthing, sharing how, as a child, music became a multi-sensual experience for him. It made him see colors; he could taste it; he could smell it. And so he could sing like few others. “My father said it was a gift from God,” Cooper says, and from there, we rarely get much intuition into Lionel’s intimate connection with one of humanity’s ultimate art forms, but hey, at least it was explained to us in clear, plain language. Lionel grew up in a clapboard shack in rural Kentucky, his parents salt-of-the-earth farmers; his father (Raphael Sbarge) played the fiddle and his mother (Molly Price) looks like she stepped out of James McNeill Whistler’s most famous painting. 

The boy’s songbird voice earned him a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music, where the adult Lionel (Mescal) mostly sits quietly in his spectacles, appreciating rural folk songs. He especially appreciates them when, one night in a gently bustling bar, he hears David White (O’Connell) playing one on the piano. Cooper narrates how David has a photographic memory, which allows him to “collect” songs in his mind. The two hit it off all night in the pub before emerging into the muted light of sunrise and moseying to David’s apartment to further hit it off, you know, in bed. There’s no hesitation, no questions, just silent gaydar pinging inside each of them and manifesting in electric smiles. These are two very good actors, if you’re not already aware.

By the spring of 1917, the U.S. was sending troops overseas to engage in World War I. David is drafted and Lionel is not, what with his poor eyesight. They part. The conservatory shuts down. Lionel returns to the farm to toil and at his father’s bonfire wake, the music he hears becomes cacophonous, the diegetic fiddles merging with swells on the score. Relief and escape arrives in 1919, in the form of a letter from David, who has returned from the war, and invites Lionel for a summerlong hiking excursion through the Maine hills. They tote an Edison phonograph to the homes of rural folk, recording and preserving their songs on wax cylinders. Cooper narrates that “happiness isn’t a story,” but maybe it should be, as this portion of the film is rich and beautiful where much of what follows – and there will be much to follow – tends toward staid. They hike and talk and sing and record and consummate their love far from the eyes of judgment. Lionel darns David’s socks; David collects the feathers falling from Lionel’s pillow on the trails. Then they part again. To David’s near-insistence. Which is curious, but also pragmatic, considering the time they live in. They hug briefly in the train station. And much time will subsequently pass.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Take the male friendship in Reichardt’s period piece First Cow and queer it up with a dash of Brokeback Mountain, and you roughly have The History of Sound. 

Performance Worth Watching: O’Connell’s subtly resolute charisma keeps The History of Sound alive, in the all-too-few and -fleeting moments in which he appears. Which is to say the film isn’t always alive, in spite of Mescal’s front-of-camera gifts.

Memorable Dialogue: “Write. Send chocolate. Don’t die.” – Lionel’s words to David before he leaves for the war

Sex and Skin: A few modest sex scenes that, frankly, could stand to generate a little more heat.

Our Take: The History of Sound is a slow meander through melancholy that trickles through a quiet, peaceful forest like a fresh brook. A fresh, shallow brook. The film allows us to marinate in its understated moments, and the approach backfires – these characters are so muted, they never feel fully fleshed out, the complexity of their emotions trapped and suffocated like the moth and candle flame young Lionel captures in a jar early in the film. Mescal is asked to bear the full brunt of the film’s dramatic weight within a half-dozen or so slight variations of passive moods and facial expressions. The writing and direction here is so studied, so formal, so obviously literary, that all passion is leached out of it.

The film so often misses O’Connell’s face, which is unique and provocative and mesmerizing (like Adam Driver’s); his character is relegated to the margins so David may haunt Lionel, but so little is revealed in the moments O’Connell is on screen, that the film feels half-empty. Predictably for a film about queer love in the 1910s and ’20s (and, eventually, ’80s, when we get to see Cooper instead of merely hear him), it’s about regret and yearning, which is more than mere longing. Yearning is greater and longer than longing, and this often feels like a very long movie that found me yearning for either its facade to crack, or for it to end. Harsh, I know. But true.

There are moments of beauty here. The cinematography is evocative, and works to elegantly capture the rhythms of early-20th-century life. The story brushes up against ideas of time, place and history, how music reflects these things and therefore must be preserved – a noble notion that feels poignant but underexplored, and again, even the slightest sense of passion or urgency would’ve elevated this theme into prominence. Although it sidesteps the stereotypical machinations of queer romances set during times of prejudice and persecution, The History of Sound is stripped-down and plaintive to a fault, leaning into its bland melancholy instead of embellishing it with, say, the occasional bit of comedy or a bit of lust. It feels suffocated under its own mournful tone. You can see what the film is trying to do: break our hearts. But it’s disheartening to see it fail.

Our Call: The History of Sound keeps its emotional volume so low, the film never comes to dynamic life. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.