Flora and Son (2023) review

Divorced mom Flora (Eve Hewson), who's having a tough time raising her kleptomaniac son Max (Orén Kinlan), tries gifting him a guitar to practice but he's not interested, so she takes online lessons from L.A.-based instructor Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with the hopes of winning back her ex-husband Ian (Jack Reynor), a musician (who almost opened for Snow Patrol).  Between this and most of Carney's filmography, he's basically a one-trick pony (and it's not that great of a trick) - working class people fulfilling their dreams with music and so on - and it plays out in an expected manner: Flora develops a crush on Jeff, she starts to properly bond with her kid, Max steals a synthesizer and finally gets locked up, there's a final "show" that brings everyone together, etc.  But what he didn't expect was that Hewson (daughter of rock icon Bono from U2) would be such a charismatic lead performer: she's extroverted to a fault and has a tireless drive to her, plus she says whatever is on her mind (which isn't always a good thing).