Film: Once

Production Company: Bórd Scannán na hÉireann [ie]

Director: John Carney

Principal Actors: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová

Release Date: March 23, 2007 (Ireland) May 16, 2007 (U.S.-limited)

Film length: 85 minutes

Rating: R (for language)

5 stars

Reviewed By: Deborah Ground Buckner

There are times when we wander off our path in life, and a friendly nudge from an earthly angel can put us back on the right track. This is the story of Once, John Carney's brilliant presentation of a chance meeting of a Guy (Glen Hansard) and a Girl (Markéta Irglová).

The Guy is an earnest Irish lad, working with his dad in a vacuum cleaner repair shop and spending his nights and daytime breaks as a street musician. Against the backdrops of Dublin's shops and brick streets, he wails his heart out. Behind his singing lie the recent break-up with his girlfriend of ten years and his desire to write and perform his own songs. The Girl, a Czech immigrant to Ireland, happens by, selling roses on the street. She listens, then tosses ten cents into his guitar case. He greets her offering sarcastically, but she asks, “You do it for money?” When she learns he doubles as a vacuum repairman, she brightens and says her vacuum is broken and she will bring it to him.

The next day, the Girl, dragging her vacuum cleaner behind her like a child with a pull toy, returns. She, too, is a musician, though her piano, like her husband, had to be left behind in Prague. She takes him to a music store where the owner allows her to practice one hour each day. The session becomes a time of creation as she urges him to play one of his songs and she joins in with vocal harmony and the piano.

Through the music, their friendship grows. He encourages her to write lyrics for some of his unfinished music, and she urges him to make a recording of his songs. From the streets of Dublin, they gather backup musicians, and the recording session takes place in a magical time of realization that they have created something very special.

Hansard and Irglová are musicians, not actors. He is with the Irish band The Frames; she is a singer and songwriter. It is a delight as the closing credits reveal these two are the real-life creators of the wonderful music of the film. But they are naturals in these roles, and they let their music serve as the true star of the film. Carney presents these characters without all the trite close-ups and meaningful glances that so often remove any subtlety from a developing relationship. Instead, the scenes are so real it is as if we, too, are walking the streets of Dublin eavesdropping and observing the events as they occur.

Once shines as a story of two kindred spirits meeting and changing each other's lives forever. Its happy ending is an example of romance, not in the Hollywood style, but in the true old sense of the word.