Like Martin Scorsese loves making movies about gangsters and Christopher Nolan loves making music about time, Irish writer/director John Carney loves making movies about music and relationships. Once, Begin Again, and Sing Street all explore how people connect through a shared love of music. Carney’s newest film, Flora and Son, is no exception. This story of a mom trying to get through to her troubled son while also challenging herself to rise above her own lot through the power of music is as charming and heartfelt as those previous films.

We first meet Flora (Bono’s daughter/Irish actress Eve Hewson) out clubbing for the evening, looking like she’s trying to grasp a little of her younger glory. We quickly find out the next morning that’s exactly what she’s doing. It turns out that she’s a single mom to a teenage son, Max. Max has regularly been in trouble with the law and is one act of delinquency away from being incarcerated. In an effort to get him to connect to something, she finds a discarded guitar and has it fixed up for him. Of course, he could care less. After a moment of frustration, Flora decides to learn the instrument herself. She finds an online teacher from across the pond (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with whom, after a few fits and starts, she both becomes inspired by and inspires herself. As this relationship grows, we also find out that Max actually is into making music: electronic music. Flora seizes on that to keep digging in. While it’s not a straight line from “everything’s bad” to “everything’s great,” Carney definitely isn’t the type to go for a depressing ending, so we get to a nice place for all involved.

In a Carney movie, the music often eclipses the story and performances, largely because he often uses non-experienced actors and the songs are so, so good (Once’s “Falling Slowly” may be the best movie song of the last 20 years or so). That does not happen here, largely because the power of Hewson’s fierce performance. She’s been in several films and has gotten acclaim for her role in the recent Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters, but this is her first starring role. Based on her work here should get many more. She moves deftly between cocky, haggard, playful, crude, and uncertain in ways that never feel forced even as her character can be bull-in-a-china-shop forceful. Plus, she sings with a simple sincerity that doesn’t at all say, “Hey, this is Bono’s kid singing). It’s a funny, charming and simply fantastic performance.

The rest of the cast pales a little in comparison, but the performances are still quite good. Gordon-Levitt doesn’t break a sweat pumping out easy-going California charm that hides the disappointment of a life that hasn’t gone the way he hoped. Jack Reynor (the boyfriend from Midsommar) gets a lot of solid moments as Max’s somewhat-present dad—who, of course, is also a musician. And Young actor Orén Kinlan does a fine job as Max in his first major role.

So what about the music? It’s good! Now, it’s not quite as good as any of Carney’s previous efforts (Once and Sing Street are rightly lauded, and Begin Again is woefully underrated). But it has fun with several different genres. And the charming centerpiece song, “Meet in the Middle,” is an instantly hummable tune to take away with you, giving us one of the several moments in the movie where music does it thing to bridge emotional (and, in this case, physical) distance.

John Carney knows his lane in the filmmaking world and seems content to stay in it. We are all the better for it. Throw together some fun, some heart-tugging, and a lot of good music, and you get an enjoyable movie. And, with Flora and Son, you top it off with Hewson’s great performance and get something even a little more special.

Flora and Son is now streaming on Apple TV+.