See This Movie

For a couple months now, I've been hearing about this small Irish film called "Once." It was being hailed as one of the best rock and roll movies of all time which I thought was a serious claim to make. Well last night I finally had a chance to see this movie and can say that the hype is well-deserved. "Once" is simply fantastic. The nameless characters (listed in the final credits as "Guy" and "Girl") are so affecting as they draw you into their seemingly ordinary world of an Irish street busker and a Czech street vendor. The male lead is the singer of the Irish band "The Frames," and he wrote most of the music which is definitely a highlight of the film. Songs appear throughout the movie in places such as a music store, a city bus (one of the most entertaining scenes where the "Guy" sings about being a "broken-hearted Hoover fixer sucker guy"), on the street at night and in various apartments. The best song is when the "Girl" runs out late one night to get some batteries for a cd player and sings "If You Want Me," new lyrics she's just written to some music he'd given her. Over the course of a week, these two people write music together and fall in love, but the romance is just modern enough that things don't happen in the expected way. Taking out a loan and recruiting some street musicians as a backing band, the "Guy" records a demo which he plans to take to London to get a recording deal. The film ends ambiguously because we never learn if he's successful, but at that point, it doesn't really matter. What matters is the music that was created in collaboration with the "Girl" and the connection they had. If you haven't seen "Once," you need to. It's completely unpretentious in a world full of pretense.