WHAT IS EVERYBODY GUSHING ABOUT?
ONCE
Directed and written by John Carney; cinematography by Tim Fleming; editing
by Paul Mullen; production design by Tamara Conboy
With: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Bill Hodnett, Gerard Hendrick,
Alaistair Foley, Geoff Minogue, Hugh Walsh, Danuse Ktrestova, Sean Miller,
Marcella Plunkett, and Senan Haugh. Rated R for language. Running time: 85
minutes
Reviewed by Joel
Johnson
During the so-called “silly season” of summer blockbusters that recycle
numerous old favorites or seek to make their own name through the liberal
use of flashy CGI effects, there is one simple film that has virtually
united movie critics into a choir absolutely gushing with praise. That film
is the Irish musical Once and 102 of 105 reviews (97 percent)
compiled on the Rotten Tomatoes website (www.rottentomatoes.com)
were favorable for a composite score of 8.3 out of 10. By comparison,
Rotten Tomatoes reports The Queen, one of the most
renowned films of 2006, had 96 percent favorable reviews and a composite
score of 8.4. Once has achieved an impressive composite response that
clearly qualifies as “heady territory,” and many of the individual reviews
themselves are filled to the brim with lavish praise. You may, however, find
yourself bracing for the proverbial drop of the “other shoe.” Relax. If I
may paraphrase Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, I come neither to praise
nor to bury Once. Perhaps that isn’t entirely true. It is not as if I
have no praise for it at all—just not quite as much as it has been receiving
from so many others.
The film is
primarily the story of two people that meet on the streets of Dublin, but we
never learn their names. They are just “the guy” (Glen Hansard) and “the
girl” (Markéta Irglová). We will only get a little bit of the backstory for
each of them. We don’t know their ages, but the actor playing the guy is
thirty-seven and the actress playing the girl is nineteen. It is likely that
we are supposed to know that there is an age discrepancy between the two,
though it probably isn’t supposed to be seen as a difference of nearly
twenty years. The guy is single and still in the throes of a failed romance
from a decade earlier. The woman for whom the guy bears both a torch and
wounds is living in London. The girl is married with a daughter who is a
toddler. But she is separated from her daughter’s father, who is back in the
Czech Republic. The guy and the girl are linked both by a love of music and
an inability to devote the time and energy to it as befits the defining
passion of one’s life. When the film begins, the guy is moonlighting as a
street musician from his “day job” as a vacuum cleaner repairman in his
father’s shop, and the girl, despite being a conservatory-trained musician,
is an immigrant struggling to cobble together a series of menial jobs in
Dublin to support herself, her daughter, and her own mother.
The film is a
musical with the characters performing both individually and together. It is
probably worth noting that the two leads are really musicians (not just
actors playing musicians) and collaborated together on an album called
The Swell Season that was released last year. While musical theater uses
song to tell its story, it usually requires a very definite “willing
suspension of disbelief” since encountering people routinely breaking into
song is a profoundly unreal experience. However, Once follows the
device frequently used so that all that music does not seem bizarre—make the
story about performers and place it where it would be natural for them to
perform.
Once is, of
course, a love story, and the decency and genuine charm of our leads easily
seduce the audience into rooting for them to become a couple. They
definitely do profoundly change each other’s lives, but not always in the
ways one would expect from watching a lot of either musical theater or
movies. It is likely that abjuring from the well-trod paths to take the one
less traveled has provided critics with something that is different and
original from what they have been experiencing lately.
Although there are
few recognizable names or faces in the film, and many of the actors are
appearing in their first film, the two leads do receive effective, though
not particularly demanding, supporting performances from the small ensemble.
Bill Hodnett, who plays the guy’s father, and Geoff Minogue who plays Eamon,
the recording technician, probably have the best opportunity to put their
own stamp on their roles.
The cinematography
is straightforward and matter-of-fact. Yet it is softly focused, and the
color is somewhat desaturated, not to impart an overweening perspective to
the filmgoer but to instead give the film a sense of intimacy and reality
that comes from simply trying to make a documentary record of the events
that are happening. This works, as does a music video sequence that looks
like it has been pieced together from a series of worn clips torn from old
home movies and videos of the guy’s old girlfriend.
So what is my
problem with this film? Probably my biggest problem is the music. There is a
feeling of melancholy that pervades the story so it is not surprising that
there aren’t a lot of flashy toe-tappers, but it did seem that the songs by
Glen Hansard sounded very much alike, even if there were certain
recognizable differences. It perhaps didn’t help that the film’s preview,
which ran for about two months at my favorite movie theater, prominently
features the theme song. The song is refrained multiple times during the
film, but excessive exposure in the trailer had already made it tiresome. I
would also guess that when the end product of the two leads’ musical
collaboration is supposed to be a demo album of songs for the guy to parlay
into a full-time music career, something has not worked for me when I have
no interest—zilch—in getting the album.
It is also likely
that the choir of adoring critics created inflated expectations. The film
tells a simple, straightforward story about two charming individuals. It is
a good film. While the film goes in a different direction from most films,
it does not provide anything especially profound. Everyone’s life is
definitively changed for the better through encounters with certain
individuals. We meet others, build relationships, experience their wisdom
and support, may feel attraction and love, and either do or do not pursue
romance for reasons both noble, such as respect for existing relationships,
and otherwise, such as fearing rejection. This is real life, and though it
is unusual for a film to capture this aspect of it, this didn’t blow my
socks off, and it is not the best thing since sliced bread.
It is also
interesting to think about the ending, which was interestingly original and
also quite ambiguous. I will refrain from providing any further details, but
the ambiguity would seem to make the possibility that Once could be
followed by Twice or Once Again not out of the question.
Considering its track record for success, I’m sure that someone somewhere is
working on a script, and somebody else á la Altman’s The Player is
working on a pitch. There would be, for the critics at least, a certain
irony to that.
