Finding the story: Irish director John Carney blends music and feeling in 'Flora and Son' on Apple TV+

John Carney knows that music is a universal language.

This is why the Irish-based filmmaker has used music in his previous feature films.

His latest, “Flora and Son,” is set to be released on Apple TV+ on Friday, Sept. 29.

The film tells the story of Flora, played by Eve Hewson, a young single mother with a disinterested ex, Ian, played by Jack Reynor, who is constantly trying to relive his days as an almost rock star, and their son, Max, played by Orén Kinlan, who is always getting into trouble. On her way home from her job as a caretaker for wealthy children, Flora finds a guitar in a dumpster. She gets it fixed up and gives it to Max, hoping it might help him find some motivation in life. But when Max rejects her gift, Flora picks it up instead.

One night, after a few glasses of wine, Flora browses YouTube and stumbles upon guitar lessons by Jeff, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a musician in Los Angeles.

Enlisting his help, Flora sets out to learn to play. Their relationship over Zoom is uneasy at first. Flora flirts intensely with him, and doesn’t take the task at hand seriously. But soon their dynamic evolves as he introduces her to music from Joni Mitchell and other artists, and she begins to truly enjoy the experience of expressing herself and learning to play.

Flora and Max write songs together, and she begins to dream of her shot in the business.

“I will always stop at a dumpster to see if there is anything there for me,” Carney says during a recent interview. “I was walking home past a dumpster and found a guitar amp there. I brought it home, dusted it off, cleaned it, fixed the wires and plugged it in. It worked. That image is where the story began.”

Carney began to write dialog and let the characters reveal themselves.

He then recalled his love for music growing up and his own journey with music.

Finding the story: Irish director John Carney blends music and feeling in 'Flora and Son' on Apple TV+

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“I didn’t want to write from my own personal life, so I tried to find something personal in the story,” he says. “Growing up, my mother did pay for the guitar to get me to stop being a delinquent kid. I worked really hard at the bass guitar, and I became good at it. It’s the only instrument that I’m actually good at. Music is a lifeline to a lot of people, and it really was to me. I wanted to reenact that, but not in the middle class family I grew up in. I wanted the stakes to be higher. I wanted them to not have a lot of money, so finding a guitar meant something, and paying for lessons meant something. It hurt their wallets.”

Carney got to return to Dublin to create the project, which he was very happy with.

Then the time came for casting and he struck gold.

“The great thing about this project is that everyone not only believed in the script, but they were on board to making it the best they could,” he says. “That doesn’t always happen when making films. Each actor put their all into each role, and it’s been refreshing to be at the helm of a project like this.”

Carney is known for his films such as “Sing Street,” “Once” and “Begin Again” – all of which use music to tell the story.

This time around, he wanted to pay homage to the great moments in his life that had music set to it.

“(I’d) come home and get into my parents’ house. They’d both be at work and my grandmother would be inside in the kitchen,” he says. “I’d go into the living room at 12 o’clock in the day and put on ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ by Stevie Wonder, and watch through the window. I’d look at the world while listening to these records for hours. I didn’t need anybody. There was no mobile phone, no sharing, no tweeting. Just Stevie Wonder and looking at the sun coming out on a red brick wall, and creating shadows out of the tree. I felt like a bird flying. It’s what I was meant to do. It was natural and perfect. I wasn’t in school listening to that math teacher. I was at home listening to Stevie Wonder.”

Carney and crew spent months working on the production, and he’s ready for the world to see it and hopefully have a connection.

“The older I get, the harder making a film is,” he says. “I hope that an audience will find inspiration in the story we’re telling. This has been put together with love and care.”