Once (2007)

I am writing this review now while listening to the award winning song "Falling Slowly". ONCE is the best musical-in my opinion. It is the simplest story I've ever seen on screen. Its simplicity is shown through everything surrounds it from the camera to the budget to the 17 days in which it was wholly made. Sometimes you needn't a high budget to be captured your audience.About the performances. you will never feel the actors are acting. They are very real. Actually everything is very real, I think due to the camera work. I doubt it is a home camera or something ;) I don't have much words to describe it. Simply, it is a feel-good movie with a straightforward story about immigrants in Ireland, and sweet melodies that after watching it you'll feel loving everyone and want to hug everyone. You know, am so sensitive towards music :)

Once is a nice twee film that by and large avoids the 'Oirish' stereotypes and tries to be true to its feelings even though it is bittersweet.The main characters are nameless. He is a busker trying to make a living when someone is not stealing his takings and also repairs vacuum cleaners in his father's repair shop. She is a Czech immigrant who asks him to repair her vacuum cleaner and she also plays piano.Together they meet and decide to produce and record music together, he writes a song to win his ex-girlfriend back who is in London. She has a toddler living with her and her mother as well as a husband back in the Czech republic.The film has been compared to 'Brief Encounter', I see it as an urban, streetwise romantic drama which certainly dangles a sweet love story but also hints that they have other factors that threaten to keep them apart. It is also a small scale film filled with some good songs which elevates the film more than it deserves to as the story is too basic.

A man busks in a square in Dublin. By day he helps his father in a vacuum cleaner repair store and then spends his free time singing songs and playing guitar for tips. Most of the songs are his own compositions. Then he meets a young Czech woman who plays piano and writes her own songs. Musically, they are a perfect match. Romantically, there are impediments...I wanted to like this more than I eventually did. The plot was sweet and had heaps of potential. However, there is actually very little in the way of plot development or substance in the movie. It is short - 80 minutes or so - and then a large portion of the movie is taken up by music. Not only does this leave not much left for drama, the songs halt any momentum in the plot.In the end it felt like a short, padded with heaps of music.The music, almost entirely written by the two lead actors - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, is okay, generally. Some pretty good songs in there, some quite weak.Good performances by Hansard and Irglova. There is a naturalness and sincerity to them, like watching a home movie, and the chemistry between them is spot-on. The rough-around-the-edges feel to the production helps too.In the end, a bit disappointing as, with a bit more work and less padding, this could have been turned into a truly wonderful relationship drama. Hard to dislike though - it is sweet and the ending is quite emotional.

An awesome and simple movie at the same time. I think we can't call it a love story because the characters did not actually fall in love for each other but it's kind of evident that exists "chemistry" between them. At the beginning we expect a love story between them but in the end we figured out that they have other soulmates. She will try to rearrange the things with her husband and he will travel to London in order to enhance his career and to get along with a girl (in the movie we can't understand if this girl is his ex- girlfriend or a very close friend who he love very much but she does not love him).Things i like the most: - Soundtrack obviously - The part in witch he writes and sings (song "Lies" very beautiful song) at the same time he sees a video of his loved one. I confess this part made me cry because we can actually be in his skin and fell what he fells. - When he buys the piano for the girl (a good ending for a good film) - When the girl sings the song "if you want me" that he refuses to write because he thinks is too romantic.Things i don't like: - We did not know if the guy find his loved one in London and if they get together ( it's not the point of the movie but i would have liked to know)A magical movie and "i don't know you but i love you".