Movie Review: THE HISTORY OF SOUND

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 19th, 2025 / 01:24 AM

THE HISTORY OF SOUND movie poster | ©2025 Mubi

Rating: R
Stars: Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor, Chris Cooper, Emma Canning, Briana Middleton, Hadley Robinson, Molly Price, Raphael Sbarge, Tom Nelis, Leo Cocovinus
Writer: Ben Shattuck, based on his short story
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Distributor: Mubi
Release Date: September 12, 2025

September 2025 is shaping up to be an excellent month for independent films in which sound recording figures heavily into the plot. In one week, we’ve gotten RABBIT TRAP, SPINAL TAP II, and THE HISTORY OF SOUND.

Directed by Oliver Hermanus and scripted by Ben Shattuck, based on his short story, THE HISTORY OF SOUND aims to accomplish a lot. Most of it takes place between 1910, when we meet Lionel Worthing as a boy (Leo Cocovinus), living with his music-loving father (Raphael Sbarge) and mother (Molly Price) on their small farm in rural Kentucky, and 1930, with a coda set in 1980.

A much older Lionel (Chris Cooper) narrates. Music filled him up. He could see music, knew the key of coughing, dog barks, frog croaks, and could even taste sound. His gifts bring him to the attention of a music teacher (this is told, not shown), who helps Lionel (now played by Paul Mescal) get a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music.

At the Conservatory, Lionel meets fellow student David Price (Josh O’Connor), a patrician who has eidetic memory and can play a song note for note after hearing it once. The two young men instantly become friends, and almost as quickly become lovers.

Then David is drafted into World War I. Lionel’s relatively poor eyesight keeps him out of the war, so he goes back to the farm.

When the war ends, David returns without evident physical injury. He secures a position at a university in Maine and invites Lionel to accompany him on a tour of out-of-the-way hamlets on the East Coast to find and record local folk songs.

The project and David’s company both appeal to Lionel. In the narration, he tells us the early weeks of this journey were the happiest of his life. Wax cylinders, the highest sound technology of the era, are used to preserve the music.

For folk music lovers, this section has a lot of charm, with plenty of ballads and tunes of old. The romance is also pleasant. An added bonus is some thought-provoking discussion of what sound and music and singing do for us as humans.

But David has been psychologically affected by trench warfare. This, plus class differences, starts to make the odyssey less idyllic and more quietly combative. By the time they’re done with the song collecting, there is a gulf between Lionel and David.

This is about halfway through THE HISTORY OF SOUND, which switches gears here. In narration, Lionel tells us he kept writing to David, but David never answered, so Lionel gave up in the spring of 1921.

Certain things work better in literary format than on screen. One of these is frontloading a major life event, so that everything that follows feels less important. On the page, thoughts of the past can inform the present. In a film, at least this one, we’ve got Lionel’s word for it that nothing measures up to the singular joys of those weeks. We believe him, but we’ve still got half a movie of all-downhill-from-there to go with him.

When Lionel gets some answers to questions that we have as well, there’s still half an hour to go after that. To add to this, while whatever it is that happens between the main body of the drama and an epilogue, there have clearly been some big turning points for Lionel. Do they really matter so little?

Mescal is a lovely, agreeable protagonist, even if his singing voice doesn’t sound quite worthy of the acclaim it generates. O’Connor makes David someone whose intelligence and wit are alluring. He suggests hidden depths and we understand Lionel’s attraction to him.

THE HISTORY OF SOUND has a beguiling beginning, but as it warns us, it’s not as engaging once that’s over.

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