‘The History of Sound’ Is Beautiful, But Barely Audible — ‘Brokeback’ Lite [Cannes]

“The History of Sound” is a film of quiet longing—about two men bound by music, war, and unspoken love at a time when such connections could never be named aloud.

Set during World War I and the years surrounding it, the story follows Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O’Connor), young musicians whose romance blooms in silence and restraint. They meet in a Boston conservatory, eyes locking over a folk song, and without fanfare or tension, they fall into each other’s lives—and beds. The film’s defining trait is its refusal to overstate or dramatize; its emotions, like its dialogue, are subdued, nearly whispered.

Director Oliver Hermanus constructs this world with a painter’s eye: the palette muted, the settings almost hushed. Working from a screenplay by Ben Shattuck, adapting his own short story, Hermanus leans heavily into atmosphere—twilight walks, whispered exchanges, landscapes drenched in fog. The approach is elegant, sometimes beautiful, and emotionally restrained.

This is where the film begins to falter. While the premise suggests a sweeping inner life, the movie seems hesitant to truly inhabit it. It gestures at deep feeling without always expressing it. O’Connor brings a charismatic complexity to David—he’s sly, sharp, vulnerable beneath the charm. Mescal, by contrast, plays Lionel with a stillness that borders on blankness. His performance feels muted to the point of abstraction. The romance, then, never quite combusts—it smolders but never burns.

There are clear echoes of “Brokeback Mountain,” and some scenes here feel like outright ripoffs. “The History of Sound” is too careful, too composed. When the moment comes for Lionel to make a choice—to risk a future with David—his refusal is delivered without the emotional architecture to support it. The scene is pivotal, yet it lands without weight.

The story continues to drift. The years pass. Letters are written and go unanswered. Lionel wanders through Europe and into other relationships, but the ache for David lingers. It should feel tragic, but instead it feels faint. Even the presence of Chris Cooper as an older Lionel adds little weight; it’s as if the film, like its protagonist, has spent too much time holding back.

“The History of Sound” is never less than tasteful, and it occasionally reaches for something poetic. But it’s so reserved, so unwilling to push past suggestion, that it never quite earns its emotional payoff.