Movies: The History of Sound (2025) by Oliver Hermanus: The Voice of a Forbidden Love
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The Echoes of a Quiet Heart: A WWI-Era Chronicle of Love and Lost American Voices.
The History of Sound (2025) is a highly anticipated new historical romance, marking the latest feature from director Oliver Hermanus and starring top actors Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. The film, nominated for major honors including the Palme d'Or and Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, is a compelling adaptation of a literary work. It uses meticulous visual artistry and restrained performances to trace a poignant, forbidden love between two young men during the post-WWI era, aligning with the rising trend of sophisticated Art-House Literary Romance and powerful LGBTQ+ historical narratives.
Summary of Content: A historical romance set during World War I and its aftermath, following Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal), a musically gifted farm boy, and David White (Josh O'Connor), a privileged New England researcher, as they travel rural America to record folk songs on early wax cylinder machines. Their shared passion for music evolves into a passionate but restrained gay romance, exploring the themes of hidden love, memory, regret, and the changing American landscape of the early 20th century.
Movie Trend: It aligns with the trend of Historical Queer Cinema and Literary Adaptations of evocative, character-driven short stories, often featuring subtle, emotionally intense performances.
Social Trend: It taps into the current social trend of increasing visibility and thoughtful exploration of LGBTQ+ history and relationships within restrictive past social contexts.
Director Info: The film is directed by Oliver Hermanus, known for his critically acclaimed, emotionally resonant work, particularly in depicting constrained lives and intense relationships, such as Moffie and Living.
Major Awards and Nominations: The film has received significant attention, including 3 nominations total, most notably nominations for the Queer Palm and the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Why It Is Trending: The Art of the Unspoken and Star Power
This film is generating significant buzz due to its poetic narrative hook, its recognition at major film festivals, and the star power and reputation of its director and two highly acclaimed lead actors.
Synopsis Appeal: The compelling premise juxtaposes the mission to record America's disappearing folk music on wax cylinders—a physical act of preserving "sound"—with the silence and invisibility surrounding the forbidden, tender love between the two protagonists. This duality creates a powerful, poetic narrative core.
Award Recognition: Nominations for major international awards, particularly the Palme d'Or at Cannes, signify high artistic quality, guaranteeing global critical and public interest.
A-List Talent: The casting of two of the most celebrated young actors, Paul Mescal (an Oscar nominee) and Josh O'Connor (an Emmy winner), known for their nuanced, emotionally layered performances, draws a large audience segment interested in sophisticated drama.
Director's Pedigree: Oliver Hermanus has a strong track record of directing films with emotional depth and visual mastery, setting high expectations for this literary adaptation.
Insight: Filmmakers can learn that combining a compelling historical setting with a timeless, high-stakes emotional core (like forbidden love) and attaching in-demand, critically respected talent is a formula for immediate trend status and major festival recognition. The implied consumer trend is a continued high demand for historical dramas with contemporary relevance and a strong focus on acting excellence.
Why to Watch This Movie: Aesthetic Mastery Meets Restrained Emotion
This film is highly recommended for its exquisite period detail, emotionally charged but subtle performances, stunning cinematography, and its thoughtful exploration of a profound, lifelong love confined by societal norms.
Exquisite Visuals and Period Authenticity: Reviewers consistently praise the film's stunning visual quality and the meticulous recreation of 1917 America, with one comparing the American scenes to the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. This mastery of atmosphere and detail elevates the film beyond simple drama.
Powerful, Understated Acting: The performances by Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor are lauded as "powerfully understated and realistic." O'Connor, in particular, is noted for his ability to convey immense emotion through subtle gestures and his gaze, which skillfully communicates the depth of the characters' restricted bond.
Intelligent and Haunting Exploration of Love: The film is deemed "intelligent, sensitive, and haunting" for its portrayal of "the love that dare not speak at all." It is significant for exploring a deep, mutual bond that, due to the early 20th-century social climate, is largely unacknowledged, prioritizing a focus on mutual respect and simple, authentic connection.
Integration of Music and History: The narrative skillfully weaves in authentic American folk songs and the historical detail of early sound recording (wax cylinders), making the search for "sound" a rewarding and metaphorically rich element for viewers interested in music history.
Insight: The success highlights that an audience appreciates films that prioritize atmosphere, visual beauty, and restrained emotional intensity over explicit melodrama. The consumer insight is that viewers are drawn to narratives that offer a poetic, art-house-level experience of historical romance, driven by the nuance of performance.
Where to watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-history-of-sound (US), https://www.justwatch.com/au/movie/the-history-of-sound (Australia), https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-history-of-sound (Canada)
Link IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15799524/
Link Review: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/21/the-history-of-sound-review-paul-mescal-josh-oconnor-cannes
What Trend is followed: The New Wave of Poetic Historical Romance
The film's artistic approach aligns with a convergence of contemporary film trends:
Art-House Literary Adaptation: The film is based on a short story by Ben Shattuck and adheres to a slow, deliberate, and lyrically meditative pacing common in high-brow cinematic adaptations.
Historical Queer Cinema (Post-WWI Melancholy): It addresses the contemporary demand for thoughtful LGBTQ+ narratives set in restrictive historical periods, using the early 20th century setting to explore themes of forced silence, societal constraint, and the lifelong impact of a brief, forbidden love. It is often compared to films like Brokeback Mountain due to its tragic, memory-driven trajectory.
The "Aesthetic Period Piece": Director Oliver Hermanus employs a visually stunning, painterly quality (Cinéuropa praised its "luminous sensitivity") and meticulous period detail, appealing to audiences who value cinema as a high art form, with a focus on atmosphere and production design.
Insight: The film successfully navigates the commercial viability of a historical romance by integrating social relevance (LGBTQ+ history) with high artistic execution (aesthetic period piece), ensuring it appeals to both critical acclaim and the niche market seeking profound, character-driven drama.
Movie Plot: The Ephemeral Wax Cylinder and the Echo of a Lost Love
The plot traces the relationship between Lionel Worthing and David White, which begins in 1917, is interrupted by WWI, and rekindles briefly but profoundly in 1920 during a folk song collection trip in Maine. The separation, driven by societal pressures and David's hidden trauma, defines the rest of Lionel's life, culminating decades later with the discovery of a final, private recording that gives closure to his lifelong grief.
Initial Connection (1917): Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal), a Kentucky farm-boy and music prodigy, meets David White (Josh O'Connor), a charming, privileged student, at the Boston Music Conservatory. They bond over their shared love of folk music, and their connection immediately blossoms into a passionate, intimate, and secret relationship.
Interruption by War: World War I separates them. David is drafted and sent to Europe, while Lionel, ineligible due to poor eyesight, returns to his family's farm in Kentucky.
The Maine Expedition (1920): After the war, David, working with early sound equipment, recruits Lionel for a research project to travel through rural New England and collect folk songs using a Thomas Edison wax cylinder recording machine. This winter journey becomes the defining, idyllic, and deeply intimate period of their romance.
Lifelong Separation: The couple parts ways with the vague promise of a future, but David, concealing personal and societal pressures (including an engagement), eventually breaks off communication. Lionel moves to Europe, finding success as a singer and having other relationships, but he is perpetually haunted by the memory of David and their time in Maine.
The Revelation (Decades Later): Years later, an older Lionel (played by Chris Cooper) returns to America and tracks down David, only to learn the tragic truth from David's widow: David died by suicide shortly after their trip, unable to cope with the war's trauma and the constraints of his life.
The Final Echo: Lionel receives a package containing the long-lost wax cylinders. One final, unexpected recording from David contains his apology, his thanks, and a recording of him singing the song Lionel had sung to him when they first met, providing Lionel with a poignant, audio-archived memory of their lost love.
Insight: The power of the narrative rests in the contrast between the 'recorded sound' and the 'unspoken love,' showing how small moments of happiness, carefully preserved, can sustain a lifetime of memory. Filmmakers can note the effectiveness of using a historical mission (collecting folk songs) as a compelling, metaphorically relevant backdrop for the central emotional drama.
Director's Vision: Poetic Restraint and Aesthetic Precision
Oliver Hermanus's vision is centered on achieving profound aesthetic beauty and atmosphere through a style defined by restraint, a choice intended to articulate the intense, suppressed emotions inherent to the historical context of the central romance.
Focus on Atmosphere and Visual Tone: Hermanus skillfully constructs the film's world, creating a powerful atmosphere and visual tone that critics found comparable to the aesthetic precision of directors like Luca Guadagnino.
Poetic Ambition and Period Detail: The direction is noted for its "considerable poetic ambition" and flawless "period sensibility," demonstrating enormous effort in meticulously recreating the time period, down to the costumes and rural settings.
Restraint as a Central Technique: Hermanus consciously employs continued restraint in depicting the emotional and physical aspects of the romance. This choice is viewed by some as an appropriate, realistic depiction of "the love that dare not speak at all," but others found this deliberate emotional distance to be limiting.
Symbolism through Fragments: The vision uses highly resonant, impressionistic details (e.g., pillow feathers, the final recorded reel) as emotional fragments. These isolated moments, though affecting, are intended to carry the emotional weight of the entire two-hour film.
Insight: The key takeaway for filmmakers is that aesthetic mastery (cinematography, set design) can be a powerful emotional tool. However, the use of extreme restraint is a crucial, dividing choice that must be meticulously balanced to prevent the emotional narrative from appearing contrived or distant to the audience.
Themes: Love, Memory, Silence, and the Search for Authenticity
The film explores universal themes of love and regret while using its unique premise to delve into historical issues of identity, memory, and cultural preservation.
Forbidden Love and Societal Constraint: The core theme is the tender, hidden romantic and sexual relationship between the two protagonists. Their love is the "love that dare not speak at all," forced into silence and secrecy by the repressive social norms of the early 20th century.
Memory and the Weight of the Past: The film is a meditation on how a brief, intense moment of connection can define and haunt a person's life for decades. Lionel's journey becomes one of carrying the memory and regret of the love he lost.
The Preservation of Cultural and Personal Voice: The technical plot—the mission to record and preserve American folk songs—serves as a metaphor for the struggle to find and preserve one's authentic voice and identity, both cultural and sexual, before it is lost forever.
Sound, Silence, and Visibility: The juxtaposition of the audible sounds being captured with the profound silence surrounding the central characters' relationship highlights the central conflict between what can be seen/heard and what must remain hidden.
The Burden of Conventionality: The film addresses the pressure of expectation, particularly Lionel's contemplation of a "traditional family life with a wife and children," which stands in stark contrast to the happiness he found with David.
Insight: The film's strength lies in its layered thematic approach. By using the historical context of sound recording, the filmmakers created a powerful metaphorical framework where the technical aspects of the plot directly amplify the emotional and social themes, proving the value of a well-integrated historical backdrop.
Key Success Factors: Casting, Aesthetics, and Critical Acclaim
The success of The History of Sound is rooted in the synergistic power of its exceptional casting, its high artistic production value, and the significant validation it received from prestigious international film festivals.
Exceptional Lead Casting: The pairing of Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor provides the film with star power and critical credibility. Both actors are masters of understated, internal emotion, perfectly matching the story's restrained tone, ensuring high audience interest in their chemistry.
Masterful Production Design and Cinematography: The film is consistently praised for being "gorgeous," with "beautifully detailed" art direction and stunning cinematography. This commitment to high aesthetic quality elevates the experience from mere narrative to art and is a key factor in awards consideration.
Literary Source Material: The film is a sensitive adaptation of a well-regarded short story. The source material provides a strong, melancholic, and thematically rich foundation, giving the film immediate literary gravitas.
Festival and Industry Validation: Nominations for the prestigious Palme d'Or and the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival provide undeniable validation of the film's artistic merit, boosting its profile globally among critics and cinephiles.
Oliver Hermanus's Direction: His established reputation for handling sensitive, intense dramas with visual maturity assured that the short story's difficult themes would be adapted with skill and poetic insight.
Insight: The success proves that an emphasis on artistic craft (cinematography, period authenticity) is crucial, and that casting specific, critically validated actors can be a strategic factor for films centered on emotional depth and internal conflict, effectively signaling the film's artistic seriousness.
Awards and Nominations: A Festival Darling with High Honors
The film quickly established itself as a major artistic contender on the international festival circuit, securing a total of 3 nominations early in its release and confirming its high critical standing.
The History of Sound received 3 nominations total early in its release cycle. Most notably, the film was nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the highest honor at the festival, recognizing the directorial achievement of Oliver Hermanus. It also received a nomination for the Queer Palm at the same festival, an award specifically recognizing LGBTQ+-related films, affirming the central theme of the narrative. Finally, it was nominated for the Emeric Pressburger Prize for Best Feature Film at the CineFest - Miskolc International Film Festival.
Insight: Achieving nominations at top-tier festivals like Cannes (Palme d'Or) is the ultimate industry signal of a film's artistic value. The simultaneous nomination for the Queer Palm highlights how the film successfully intersects high art with important social themes.
Critics Reception: Beautiful but Divided on Emotional Depth
The critics largely praise the film's aesthetics, technical excellence, and acting but are significantly divided on whether the director's restrained approach successfully delivers sufficient emotional power.
The Guardian (Negative/Mixed): Critiques the film as "anaemic, laborious, achingly tasteful," arguing the love story is "kept under glass" and lacks passionate life. It suggested the romance is told with "tiresomely mournful awe at its own sadness."
Variety (Mixed/Negative): Bluntly described the film as a "drama that mostly just sits there," calling it "Brokeback Mountain on sedatives," indicating disappointment with the subdued emotional trajectory.
Roger Ebert (Christy Lemire - Mixed/Positive): Praised the technical skill, noting, "Everything about The History of Sound is restrained to a fault—until it's about the music... If only the romance at the film's center were so engaging."
Screen Daily (Positive): Highlighted the success of the subdued tone, stating, "Reticence is also the keynote of The History of Sound's two riveting central performances," finding the restraint effective for the film's theme.
BFI (Mixed/Negative): Found the passion "more studied than felt," calling it a "timid romantic drama" that "lacks emotional intensity," suggesting Hermanus "risks ossifying into a specialist in handsome discretion."
Insight: The critical dialogue provides a valuable lesson: restraint as an artistic choice is high-risk, high-reward. While it delivers sophisticated, poetic beauty and wins over critics who value subtlety, it can also lead to a perception of emotional distance for those who require more explicit emotional payoff. The implied consumer trend is a continued high appetite for LGBTQ+ historical narratives, but with a critical eye toward the balance between artistic elegance and authentic emotional force.
Reviews: Acknowledging a Haunting, Poetic Vision
User and specialized reviews generally concur on the film's visual and acting strengths, but offer a range of perspectives on the pacing and the ultimate impact of the central romance, often comparing its emotional scope to other notable films.
Focus on Understated Performance: Reviews frequently single out Josh O'Connor for his ability to "steal every scenes," conveying profound emotional depth through his gaze and subtle expressions, confirming the romance is powered by the actors' non-verbal communication.
The Poetic Experience: Highly positive reviews describe the film as "Intelligent, sensitive, and haunting" (Sees All), appreciating its treatment of the gay relationship as one of profound, unspoken mutual respect, which makes the narrative feel historically significant.
The Pacing and Emotional Distance: Users noted the film is "slow," and critics like UvenWarren argued that the director's excessive restraint makes the love "too attenuated," preventing the audience from fully empathizing with the central bond compared to the intensity of similar films like Brokeback Mountain.
Technical Excellence: There is a near-universal agreement on the flawless nature of the period setting, costumes, cinematography, and music choices, confirming the high level of technical and artistic skill behind the production.
Insight: The reviews demonstrate that the audience is highly attuned to the chemistry and power of lead performances, especially in a relationship-driven film. The constant comparison to a genre touchstone (Brokeback Mountain) indicates that any film tackling a similar theme must effectively establish its own unique emotional foundation to be judged on its own terms.
Release Dates: Wide International Festival and Theatrical Run
The film's release strategy prioritizes a prestigious festival run before a wide theatrical rollout, maximizing critical buzz and art-house appeal globally.
Theatrical Release Date (United States): September 12, 2025
Theatrical Release Date (Key International):
France (Cannes Film Festival Premiere): May 21, 2025
United Kingdom (BFI London Film Festival): October 18, 2025
Release Date on Streaming: No immediate streaming date is provided in the available data, but festival and limited theatrical releases generally precede wide streaming availability by several months.
Insight: The phased release, starting with major festivals (Cannes, Telluride, London), is a deliberate strategy for an art-house film to build critical momentum and cultural cachet before reaching the broader theatrical market. This signals that the film is intended as a prestige product and a serious awards contender.
What Movie Trend Film Is Following: The Art-House Literary Romance
The History of Sound is a prime example of the Art-House Literary Romance trend. This trend is characterized by the adaptation of a short, evocative literary work (Ben Shattuck's story), a focus on visual poetry and atmosphere over conventional plot pacing, and casting actors known for nuanced, emotionally intense performances (Paul Mescal, Josh O'Connor). These films often explore historical, often marginalized, relationships with an emphasis on melancholy, memory, and high aesthetic value, positioning them as critical darlings.
Insight: This trend indicates a sustained demand for films that prioritize craft and emotional subtlety over blockbuster spectacle. Filmmakers pursuing this path must ensure the source material's inherent quality and the aesthetic execution are impeccable to satisfy the sophisticated audience this genre attracts.
What Big Social Trend Is Following: Historical LGBTQ+ Visibility and Empathy
The film directly addresses the significant social trend of demanding historical visibility and empathetic representation for LGBTQ+ narratives. By depicting a gay relationship in the early 20th century (1917, WWI era), the film contributes to the broader movement of acknowledging and honoring queer history. It focuses on the reality of a love that was forced into "silence," allowing a contemporary audience to gain a deeper, more humanizing understanding of the constraints and emotional costs of living outside social acceptance in the past, fostering greater empathy.
Insight: The success of films like this confirms that modern audiences are actively seeking out accurate and sensitive depictions of marginalized history. For content creators, this signifies that stories exploring historical constraints on identity are highly relevant and can drive significant cultural conversation and engagement.
What Consumer Trend Is Following: The Demand for Aesthetic and Emotional Sophistication
This film taps into the consumer trend for Aesthetic and Emotional Sophistication, driven by cinephiles and art-house audiences. These viewers seek films that are not simply entertainment but a profound artistic experience. They value meticulous craft (cinematography, period detail), slow-burn emotional intensity, and themes that invite deeper reflection on memory, history, and the unspoken language of the human heart, rather than relying on rapid-fire plot or explicit dramatic conflict.
Insight: This consumer segment views film as a form of art and self-enrichment. The primary takeaway for producers is that investment in uncompromised production design and top-tier directorial vision is a justifiable expense when targeting an audience that values quality and subtlety above all else.
Final Verdict: A Beautiful, Haunting Portrait of Love and Loss
The History of Sound is a visually stunning and deeply felt historical romance, elevated by Oliver Hermanus's poetic vision and the captivating, restrained performances of Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. While its deliberate emotional restraint may leave some viewers wanting more explicit expression, it is precisely this subtlety that grants the film its haunting, lasting power as a tribute to an unvoiced love and the fading echoes of America's past, positioning it as a significant art-house work.
Key Trend Highlighted: Art-House Literary Romance—The combination of a powerful literary source, high-end aesthetics, and restrained emotion.
Key Insight: The film proves that a profound love story can be effectively told through visual language and subtle performance, even when dialogue and plot are deliberately subdued, provided the aesthetic quality is exceptional.
Similar Movies: Cinematic Echoes of Forbidden and Historical Love
The following films share thematic, structural, or stylistic elements, appealing to audiences who enjoy high artistic merit in historical and romantic dramas.
Brokeback Mountain (2005): A tragic gay romance spanning decades in a restrictive American milieu, focusing on lifelong regret and loss.
Call Me By Your Name (2017): An aesthetically beautiful and sensitive portrayal of a summer romance based on a literary work, emphasizing memory and yearning.
Maurice (1987): An earlier, foundational film of British historical queer cinema about finding love and self-acceptance in the early 20th century.
The Handmaiden (2016): A visually lush period thriller centered on a secret, passionate relationship navigating restrictive social contexts.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019): A visually stunning 18th-century French film about a painter and her subject, using powerful visuals and restraint to depict intense, unspoken female love.
Insight: The recurring comparison to these films establishes The History of Sound within a prestigious cinematic lineage that appeals to audiences seeking emotional depth and high artistic merit in historical romance. This association is crucial for its market positioning as a quality art-house drama.
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