JOHN Carney is an Irish director best known for acclaimed musical-drama films like “Once” (which won an Oscar for best song), “Begin Again” (set in New York with Keira Knightley) and “Sing Street” (nominated as best musical picture in the Golden Globe.)

He now comes up with “Flora and Son”, a comedy-drama with songs set in Dublin and now shown on Apple TV. Flora is played by Eve Hewson, the daughter of the U2 frontman Bono. She is best known for TV series like “Behind Her Eyes” on Netflix and “Bad Sisters” on Apple TV.

Set in Dublin, Flora is 31, works as a baby sitter, and has a 14-year old son, Max (Oren Kinlan), who is a problem child as he has the habit of stealing. Flora doesn’t know how to handle her son is obviously rebelling since his mom was only 17 when she gave birth to him and is separated from his dad who’s now living with another woman while his irresponsible mom is into one night stands.

A cop who tries to help Max tells Eve to find a hobby for his son to occupy him, so he won’t be too much of a troublemaker. The next time he steals, the cop says they would have no choice but to put Max behind bars where, he is warned, he will “be raped anally.”

On her way home, Flora chances upon an old guitar thrown in the garbage bin. She gets it and brings it home. She gives it to Max so he can try playing the guitar, but he is not at all interested.

She then tries to learn how to play it herself by finding guitar lessons on line. She meets a musician based in Los Angeles, Jeff (Joseph Gordon Levitt), and there’s a quick connection between them. Unexpectedly, Flora finds playing the guitar quite fulfilling, with the help of her very friendly teacher.

Eventually, Flora realizes that Max’s dream is to be a rapper and a DJ. So they collaborate in coming up with a song where she sings and he raps.

The movie is obviously meant to be a crowd pleaser that demonstrates the inspirational and transformative power of song and music, just like the Oscar-winning “CODA (Children of Deaf Adults)”.

In “Flora and Son”, music becomes the instrument that serves as a bond for the alienated mother and son to finally be able to communicate, mend their very toxic relationship and thereby journey together playing a new harmony.

The problem is that the characters in “Flora and Son” are not that easy to sympathize with. Maybe it’s the writer-director way of not being accused that he has sweet, saccharine characters easy to fall in love with.

But both Flora and Max can sometimes be so insufferable. Flora can be crude and verbally abusive while Max is openly disrespectful to her. They both liberally use very vulgar, obscene language and Max even tells his mom that he watches pornography online.

Maybe it’s a way to get cheap laughs, or to make the characters sound cute and funny, but this somehow impacts negatively the way we respond to these very uncouth characters. And we are quite sure this is not how the writer-director wants us to see them.

Also, it’s obvious that the core or heart of the story is the relationship between mother and son, but this is sometimes forgotten to give way to Flora flirting oh-so-cutely with her guitar teacher.

Hewson and Levitt have a charming chemistry in their scenes together. But you sometimes get the feeling that we have two different story lines that are rivals for the viewer’s attention, that of mother and son, and mother and music teacher.

But Hewson really gives a winning performance as the spunky Flora, who obviously will never be named as Mother of the Year. She is obviously a damaged person, just like her son.

Her scenes with Levitt work well because Levitt himself is good and likeable in his role and they even get to sing a catchy song, “High Life”. But we cannot say the same for her scenes with her sullen son as the boy gives quite a lifeless performance in comparison.