Film Review

09 January 2009 03:07 BST

Once

Directed by John Carney, in cinemas now, starring Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard, running time 85 minutes.

In a nutshell...

The year's best film. By far.

What's it all about?

Once is the story of a busker who meets a Czech migrant on the streets of Dublin. The girl (Marketa Irglova) sells the Big Issue and flowers and is a cleaner; the guy (Glen Hansard of the Irish band Frames) is a vacuum cleaner fixer who writes his own songs and performs them to uncaring audiences at night. After promising to fix her Hoover however, the girl and the guy (we never know their names) become friends and develop a bond through their passion for music and their shared melancholy at the broken love lives which have led them to where they now stand.

Who's in it?

Once has a cast consisting of relative unknowns and music talents. Irglova is absolutely gorgeous as the girl and gives her character such spirit and quiet vivaciousness that the audience can’t help but fall in love with her. Hansard, who was in the Oscar-nominated The Commitments and fronts the band Frames, is genuine as the guy, literally feeling the pain sung in his music and providing the audience with an extremely heartfelt performance.

Though the motley crew of support characters ranging from Sean Miller as the guy's Dad to the backing band (Alaistair Foley, Gerard Hendrick and Hugh Walsh) all combine together to form a real mix-bag of treats, this is strictly a story about the guy and the girl.

As an example...

Guy: "What's the Czech for "Do you love him"?"
Girl: "I have to go now."

Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars

Once has received two Audience awards, one from the Dublin International Film Festival and one from the Sundance Film Festival, so an Oscar is definitely within its grasp.

What the others say

"Cut through the Spidey-Shrek hype and seek it out. You won't be sorry" – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"Not since Before Sunset has a romantic film managed to be as touching, funny or as hard to forget as Once" - Sukhdev Sandhu, The Daily Telegraph

So is it any good?

Written and directed by John Carney, Once is truly his labour of love. To Carney life is a song and we live according to the music in our hearts, whether ours are full of sorrow, regret or the hopefulness that things will turn out in the end.

Carney sets about showing his audience that life doesn’t always have a happy ending but neither is it sad – it's about the people who touch you, change you and the people who you love, even if loving means never having yourself. The fact that we never know the characters' names leaves Once open to include the audience: these are the people you know, the people you don't know, the people you see and most importantly, they are you, all at the same time.

I'd hate to classify this film as a musical as that would take away the subtleness and realness of the story and the passion its main actors inject into the narrative. There is a lot of music, a song probably every ten minutes, but the ebb and flow of Once dictates that the songs come as naturally as the characters breathe. And they are such great songs, truthful and painstakingly penned with such love and tainted hopefulness that they alone stand as great.

Love stories are seldom this real without losing some of the magic of storytelling along the way and Once miraculously maintains its spark and reality until the credits roll. It doesn't matter what happens in the end because one way or another, the love is there and that is all that matters. A timeless tale of girl meets boy, Once will restore all faith in movies.

9/10

Louise Cadell

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