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by Flick Chick Vique

Once strums up 3 &1/2 Red Vines for great love songs

For months I have been reading about a quiet little film that’s made big waves with critics, coast to coast. But it took a lull in the big budget extravaganzas before I made time to see the Irish film being touted as the movie to re-invent the musical. While there is much to like about Once, I wouldn’t go that far in my praise. Let’s be honest. The only film I’ve seen that deserves a description like that would be Moulin Rouge.

The movie centers on an Irish lad who works with his Dad repairing vacuums. By day, he is a street musician who sings covers for spare change. By night he performs his own creations for even less. Then one day a Czech immigrant stops to listen and converse. We learn, as he does, that she too is a very talented musician and it isn’t long before the two are making beautiful music together, literally.

Both parties are nursing broken hearts and they pour their very souls into their haunting melodies. It is a simple sweet story sold through melody after melody. When they aren’t performing for you, life montages are set to their serenades. The music never stops.

Sadly, for me and possibly for you, the camera never stops either. Although it is a deliberate move, along with grainy, dimly lit scenes, to give the movie a very cinema verité feel, the constant motion took a toll on me an hour into the film. I got a severe case of motion sickness! Although my reaction might be rare, I am not alone. I have read where others have had the same experience.

Still the movie won a 2007 Sundance Audience Favorite award. The leads aren’t pretty, Hollywood types. Markétá Irglová tackles her first acting role as the Girl. Glen Hansard, as Guy, has only a couple of acting credits to his name. His biggest claim to fame is that he's a member of the Irish rock group The Frames. Perhaps this inexperience is what makes their relationship so real. You never get the feeling that they are ‘acting’.

What I like most about this film was its exploration of the creative process. You really feel like a fly on the wall of a couple composing, playing, sharing, and perhaps a little falling. Falling in love. And while Irglová has a really sweet voice, it is Hansard that is haunting. I never could shake the feeling that he sounded so much like Cat Stevens! His first solo played on a dark, lonely street corner had so much fire that it could power the whole cast of Hairspray during its most rousing number!

All in all, I might not have been as impressed by Once as all the critics but there’s no doubt there’s some real sparkle to this little emerald gem.