Review: Once (2007)

This is a sweet movie.

I say that without the slightest hint of condescension, even though "sweet" is often critic-speak for "cute" or "inoffensive" or "blandly pleasing." Once is none of those. It's knowing and warm and embracing; you don't really want it to end, even though you know it must.

Once is also a new brand of musical, where the people bursting into song are actual musicians. Glen Hansard plays a busker on the streets of Dublin who also works part-time in his dad's vacuum cleaner repair shop. One evening, a pretty Czech girl (Marketa Irglova) listens to his music, likes it and tosses a dime in his guitar case. By coincidence, she has a vacuum cleaner that needs to be repaired; when she meets him on the street the next day, she drags the vacuum behind her like a dog on a leash. It turns out that she plays music as well, and they go to the back of a music shop where the owner lets her play the pianos for sale. They play one of his songs--tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence and, finally, perfect harmony.

The chemistry between them, both personal and artistic, is obvious, but both have been wounded by life in general and by love in particular. He still plays songs about the girl who broke his heart and moved to London; she still plays songs about the man who fathered her young daughter. Even so, they haven't given up the ability to smile at individual moments of sweetness, like when he meets her mom and daughter (and the three guys who come in to watch their TV because it's the only TV in the apartment building), or when his dad listens to a tape of his music for the first time.

Once reminded me, in the best ways possible, of David Lean's Summertime, where Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi have a bittersweet romance amid the canals of Venice. As with the city in that film, Dublin becomes a character in Once, observing the developing relationship from the background. And also like Lean in Summertime, writer/director John Carney lets us watch the two leads without making any judgments on their actions or lack thereof. Sometimes his camera shakes distractingly (Once was entirely shot on digital video, sometimes giving it a documentary look it doesn't need), but more often it presents everyone in such a straightforward, honest way that we can't help falling for them, flaws and all.

There's also the music, delicate yet durable creations full of longing and hope and, yeah, sweetness. The songs are good enough to stand alone, without a movie to justify their existence. (Which makes sense: Some of the songs had already appeared on albums before, both by Hansard's group, The Frames, and on an album on which he collabotaed with Irglova; the versions in Once lean toward the immediacy of live performance rather than the polish of studio efforts.)

I saw Once in Theater One at the Davis with about half a dozen other people. On one of the adjacent screens, Rush Hour 3 was likely playing to at least ten times that many people. (Granted, Once has been out for a while and Rush Hour 3 had just opened that weekend, but it still didn't seem right.) After the end credits had finished rolling (I stayed to make sure there was a soundtrack CD out there somewhere, and there is), I wanted to sneak over to that other screen and whisper in each and every viewers' ear, "Get back in line for Once. You won't regret it." But then I thought better, as someone going to see Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker punch and kick their way through Paris would be unlikely to want to get in line for any film that can be described as "sweet."

Maybe "sweet" isn't even the right word to describe Once. Maybe "beautiful" would be more appropriate.

Or, perhaps, both words are equally apt. "Beautiful and sweet." "Sweet and beautiful."

Yeah. That sounds about right.