Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor collect folk songs in tender ‘The History of Sound’

Josh O’Connor (left) and Paul Mescal in a scene from “The History of Sound” (Mubi)

If the algorithm was overseeing casting for a tender, queer romance, it’s likely that at least one combination would involve Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor. They are two of Hollywood’s most promising next generation stars, and, not insignificantly, internet boyfriends who have captured the popular imagination on and off screen.

The new film “The History of Sound” does indeed find Mescal and O’Connor in a romantic affair. But it is not remotely the stuff of “Normal People” meets “Challengers” fan fiction (thank goodness for that). It’s a silly thing to have to clarify, but posters, loglines, red carpet appearances and wild imaginations can sometimes give audiences a misleading idea about what a movie really is. In this case, “The History of Sound” is a lyrical meditation on fleeting first love and the questions that can follow and haunt for a lifetime.

Mescal is Lionel, a music prodigy from an impoverished Kentucky farm family whose talent lands him at the Boston Conservatory where, in 1917, he meets David (O’Connor) who happens to be singing a folk song that reminds him of home. It’s a mystical kind of meet-cute, in which all sounds evaporate as Lionel floats over to this magnetic person. David, however, is from a different world than Lionel, the product of a wealthy Newport family stricken by tragedy and death. And yet despite all the losses around, he has an undeniable lightness to him and a charisma that Lionel, and most who meet him, find intoxicating. Despite their ivory tower surroundings, they’re both passionate about folk music. Though prewar America was not exactly a welcoming time for gay men, Lionel and David fall into an easy, intimate relationship, and the movie comes vibrantly, ever so briefly, to life.

“The History of Sound,” an adaptation of a short story by Ben Shattuck, was directed by Oliver Hermanus, whose deliberately languorous pacing is admirably restrained but can also veer into tedium. Part of that is surely intentional as it’s a film about Lionel’s longing and searching in the absence of David, who is cruelly (for us and Lionel) gone for a large part of the movie.

The two reunite for a bit, in Maine, on a quest to record folk songs.

At its core, “The History of Sound” a memory piece, narrated by Chris Cooper, who plays an older Lionel still trying to make sense of it all.

The film, which runs over two hours, is building to a profound conclusion, a payoff for all the slow-paced and melancholy moments that preceded it. But it requires definite patience from its audience that it doesn’t necessarily earn just by existing. There’s a lot of talk about what makes folk songs great, that they’re the most “warm-blooded pieces of music” and are the songs of real people, not gods. Lionel explains at one point that they are “messy, human experiences,” “emotion in song,” “nothing fancy.”

“The History of Sound” does not feel like a folk song, however, just the inspiration for one. 

[Abridged]

LINDSEY BAHR, MDT/AP Film Writer

“The History of Sound,” a Mubi release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “some sexuality.” Running time: 127 minutes.