When Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O’Connor) first meet in a smoky Boston pub in 1917, the room glows with a soft, warm-yellow light, the color of a candle flame—a visual motif that comes to embody the warmth and gentle intimacy of their romantic relationship throughout The History of Sound.
This 2025 film, directed by Oliver Hermanus, is itself warm and quiet, low-key in its beauty. Mescal and O’Connor play lovers who meet at a music conservatory in Boston. However, their romance is interrupted by World War I, when David is drafted and sent to fight in the trenches. When he returns two years later, the two men embark on a song-recording journey, backpacking through rural and coastal Maine to capture folk ballads, cataloging the moods and refrains of oral traditions that might otherwise be lost to time. The film is based on a pair of short stories by author Ben Shattuck, for which he won a Pushcart Prize in 2019.
The love between Lionel and David stands apart from most contemporary portrayals of queer romance. It isn’t the obsessive, all-consuming limerent desire of Call Me By Your Name, nor the tragic, self-hating passion of Brokeback Mountain. Instead, their love is quiet and tender, expressed through small gestures of affection and care—David gathering the feathers that fall from a tear in Lionel’s pillow as they walk through the woods, Lionel mending David’s worn socks, and the two sharing soft smiles as they sing old folk songs together, bonding over their love of music.
Though set in the chill of rural Maine’s winter and early spring, the film feels warm-blooded. Some critics have faulted it for being too slow, too restrained in its intimacy, too minimalist. One critic called the film “Brokeback Mountain on sedatives,” another claimed that the “love scenes are at half-throttle.” But I disagree. Not every love story must shout its passion; some loves whisper.
This subtlety works especially well given the film’s setting. Much of it unfolds in rural Maine during the spring, a season often overlooked as it doesn’t have the sprawling greenery of summer, the striking colors of autumn, or the snow-blanketed beauty of winter.
Spring’s beauty is quieter, more restrained; it is a season of renewal and thawing, of shaking off the long cold months. Its beauty lies in the small details: streams defrosting and beginning to flow again, the first flowers stretching their blossoms from the ends of branches or the soil, new grass reclaiming the ground. The film captures the burgeoning beauty of spring in Maine through sensory details, such as the soft coo of mourning doves in the woods, the calls of loons over the water, sunlight filtering through bare branches and a forest floor still carpeted with fallen leaves.
As a Mainer, I was thrilled to finally see a film set in my home state that isn’t a Stephen King horror adaptation. (Don’t get me wrong, I love me some King, but I also want the world to know that Maine holds more than just monsters and mayhem. There’s love up North, too!)
My excitement only grew knowing it starred two of the most sought-after actors working today. The film is visually breathtaking, anchored by powerful performances and a folky soundtrack you’ll find yourself humming for days afterward.
But still, it raises a frustrating question: do all the most beautiful, atmospheric queer films have to end in tragedy? Set against the backdrop of World War I, it delicately but poignantly explores post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental health and the lasting trauma of shell shock. You’ll finish it with a lump in your throat, if not tears streaming down your face.
So yes, this one ends in heartbreak. But if you’re looking for a film that offers the same stunning natural imagery, stellar performances, and slow-burning romance without the devastation, I’d point you toward God’s Own Country—another Josh O’Connor film, which I’d argue is his best work. It’s moody, beautiful, and deeply moving, but most importantly, it proves that queer love stories on screen don’t always have to end in sorrow.
