4 stars (out of four)
The Irish musical romance "Once" is so beguiling I didn't realize until after a second viewing how infernally corny writer-director John Carney's film might've turned out in lesser hands. It's a very small piece, working in a deceptively casual storytelling style. But it's my favorite music film since "Stop Making Sense," and it's more emotionally satisfying than any of the Broadway-to-Hollywood adaptations made in the last 20 years.
The potentially infernally corny plot: The sweet son of a vacuum repairman has a life outside the shop as a busker, accompanying himself on guitar for passersby on a downtown Dublin thoroughfare. One day he meets a Czech woman selling flowers on the same street. She's a pianist and fledgling writer herself. After playing and singing together in a music store the man asks the woman to help him record an album before he heads off to London, where an ex-girlfriend awaits.
Then comes a happy ending, though necessarily the one you expect. It's about the happiest happy ending I've seen in a movie in years. I love it. I love pretty much everything about "Once."
Glen Hansard of the Irish band The Frames (very big there, with a sizable international fan base as well) plays the unnamed guy. Marketa Irglova, 18 years his junior, plays the girl, also unnamed. Though Hansard appeared in "The Commitments," a film as fake-hearty-bogus-Irish as "Once" is authentically charming, he's not a professional actor. Nor is Irglova. The way Carney handles their friendship, which is both a love story and a music story, you couldn't ask for a more wonderful pair.
There's nothing technically special about "Once." Carney and cinematographer Tim Fleming keep their setups extremely simple, using lots of variable, off-the-cuff telephoto shots, so that the central relationship really does seem to be developing naturally as part of the street scene, on the fly.
The first number Hansard and Irglova share, the music shop sequence, provides the hook for the film, characterized by Carney as a "video album." As they play and sing one of Hansard's songs, you can feel the click, the connection. Carney doesn't point it up with a lot of idiot closeups or emotional cues. He shoots the scene in long, patient takes. The way he and editor Paul Mullen lay in one brief insert--that of the music storekeeper taking notice of what he's hearing--you realize that every decision regarding "Once" and its vibe, its storytelling, was the correct one.
No film exists in a vacuum. In some ways "Once" plays out like a French New Wave film on the cusp of Jacques Demy's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg." That makes it an Irish French New Wave Film, I suppose. As in "Cherbourg," working-class characters go about their lives, singing. Unlike "Cherbourg," the style is anything but traditional break-into-song. Once or twice in "Once" Hansard sings in a way that could be mistaken for sung dialogue, but even that is so deftly handled you're never thrown out of the conceit.
For reasons they'll have to go to hell for someday, the Motion Picture Association of America ratings board gave "Once" an R, for a handful of swear words. Ignore that. And enjoy the film.
mjphillips@tribune.com
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'Once'
Written and directed by John Carney; photographed by Tim Fleming; edited by Paul Mullen; music by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova; production design by Tamara Conboy; produced by Martina Niland. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:28. MPAA rating: R (for language).
Guy - Glen Hansard
Girl - Marketa Irglova
Guy's dad - Bill Hodnett
Girl's mother - Danuse Ktrestova
Movie review: 'Once'
By Michael Phillips
Tribune movie criticMay 24, 2007
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