I have spinster carved on my bones.

Seduced

Shot

Forced to recover in Pedro Pascal's bed in his cute little house surrounded by pretty horses.

Unfortunately, DA creator Julian Fellowes is in the majority for post Hays Code queer representation. There are so many media pieces that reduce all queer stories to secrets being revealed that I've seen narratives described as "coming out" stories in which no coming out takes place, most recently Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016). While coming out and/or being outed are common experiences for queer people even today, the near exclusive focus on these at the expense of all other queer experience privileges the perspectives of those who must be come out to. In The History of Sound, Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O'Connor) never tell anyone they are lovers, and no one ever finds them out. Their secret remains a secret, and yet they still suffer sufficiently for David to kill himself soon after returning to his wife and baby (whom he also keeps secret! This man was truly living a double life).

In a superficial sense, this film has a lot in common with Brokeback Mountain from 21 years before. Both are stories about queer men who are the loves of each other's lives but choose to pursue socially acceptable relationships instead of each other. While he does not go through with it, Lionel comes close to marrying a woman before attempting to track down David in Maine. Both Ennis and Jack marry and father children with women. But as groundbreaking as Brokeback Mountain was for its time, it still centers Ennis's fear of being found out triggered by his witnessing the aftermath of an anti-gay hate crime as a child. The threat of violence is much more subtle in The History of Sound. Lionel and David are not living in constant dread of being assaulted or pilloried, but these are possibilities the audience is meant to be aware of without the film constantly reminding us.