It’s a truth universally acknowledged that if you cast Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor in a period piece about doomed gay longing, gays will show up. But in The History of Sound, which just premiered at Cannes, the longing might be less “doomed” and more…feather-stuffed romance and quiet joy. Finally.
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Directed by Oliver Hermanus and based on Ben Shattuck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning short story, the film follows Lionel (Mescal) and David (O’Connor) as they navigate a post-WWI New England while falling tenderly—and swiftly—in love. Think brooding musicians, war-torn countryside, and the type of silences that feel like sentences. Yes, we’re eating.
But Hermanus isn’t serving up your typical queer melodrama. Speaking to Variety at Cannes, he described the film’s emotional undercurrent as “a profound concept of nostalgia and using the metaphor of sound for how we retain feelings.” You don’t get that from Red, White & Royal Blue, no offense.
And sure, the Internet saw Mescal and O’Connor on set in suspenders and promptly lost its collective mind. But what’s striking is how quietly revolutionary this film aims to be. No dramatic closet confrontations, no blood-soaked third acts. Just two men falling in love, sticking together from day one, and—yes—sharing bedsheets and stories.
“It’s 2025, and queer audiences want more,” Hermanus said. And listen, he’s right. We’re post-Call Me by Your Name, post-Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and honestly, post-patience when it comes to watching gay people get punished by plot. “It sticks in our heads that our lives could potentially go down this path, when our sexuality and lifestyles have a danger or sadness to them,” he added.
Instead, this film leans into the comfort of presence. Into the small gestures. Into…feathers.
“Josh’s character has this amazing thing where he keeps collecting all the feathers that are falling out of Paul’s pillow and stuffing them back in,” Hermanus shared. “That’s romance.”
Yes, Oliver. That’s the gay agenda: intimacy in action, softness without spectacle.
That said, don’t fret, thirsty ones—there are sex scenes. Hermanus, generous as ever, teased:
“There are moments.” But don’t expect them to be the cinematic turning points we’ve been trained to anticipate. “I didn’t want the sex scenes to be pivotal, or [signal] gear changes in their relationship.”
We’re grown now. We like our love scenes with a side of continuity.
But let’s talk history for a moment—or rather, Mary & George, Hermanus’s other sapphic-sibling project, which featured its own feast of queer intimacy. “We would stand on set trying to think of new sex positions. I would turn to Nicholas Galitzine and say, ‘What have you not done?’ He would go, ‘I got f**ked that way yesterday. I already did an orgy with that guy the other day. I topped that guy and bottomed for the other.’”
Imagine your Monday morning team meeting having that kind of honesty.
“The intimacy coordinator would come over with an iPad and flip through new positions. It was the point where I was just trying to differentiate a French orgy from a British one, like Legos.”
No notes.
In The History of Sound, though, the focus isn’t on novelty—it’s on emotional resonance. It’s about two men who find each other through stories, songs, and shared silence, and who stay. No doomed affair, no tragic ending. Just a quiet insistence on love. And maybe a few pillow feathers.
The film will be distributed by Mubi in North America and by Focus Features and Universal Pictures internationally. A release date hasn’t been set, which gives us just enough time to emotionally prepare and stock up on tissues—and feathers.
Until then, dear gays: we have been seen. And it sounds beautiful.
Source: Variety