resistence is futile

I'd read some of the reviews, all glowing of course, yet for weeks I found myself reluctant to see "Once". Maybe it was the fact that I'd been burned more than once by movies that had been praised to the hilt, maybe it was the fact that I just don't like musicals, or music-based movies for that matter.

But I loved the idea of this film (two lonely strangers uniting over a passion for music), loved the location (Ireland, ya know), and, yet I also knew that it wouldn't take too much to make it a bloody mess (crappy songs, or too much reliance on singing, dancing and the like).

By the time I finally broke down and decided to see it last week, it was only showing in three theaters in all of southern California so my girlfriend and I drove the long and winding path of Laurel Canyon Boulevard into Hollywood to see it at a little art house.

My expectations weren't all that high going in, of course, but the half dozen movie previews for upcoming indie flicks about war, sexual persecution, and the like left me feeling quite depressed. Plus, I'd scored poorly on the trivia questions that ran in between the ads for local businesses.

So, yeah, the movie starts and the lead character (played by Glen Hansard of The Frames) is busking when a heroin addict tries swiping his guitar case full o' change. After chasing him down, he returns to his piece of sidewalk and performs this rage-filled acoustic number, veins on the side of his neck pulsing for all their worth, and, as the song ends, there is the clapping of a single pair of mitten-covered hands. They belong to a woman (played by diminutive, yet charming newcomer Marketa Irglova) who, within minutes, is asking him to fix her vaccuum cleaner.


She's a pianist without a piano, of course, but a local merchant lets her use one of the pianos in his showroom for an hour each day. She drags her new busker friend to the store and it is there that they discover their musical chemistry.

It is also the scene in which I feel the heat of teardrops down my cheek and I haven't the foggiest idea why. It isn't a sad scene. In hindsight, I think I was just that touched by the song, and by the union of their voices.

What's ultimately great about the film is its honesty. As a musician, I can see a contrived musical scene coming a mile away, yet there I was fully invested in the belief that these two strangers were intuitively learning their first song together and feeling their way into a new friendship that made the rest of the world fall away.

The mark of a great movie, for me at least, is that for the duration of "Once", my world fell away too. Plus, every single person in that theatre stayed until the very last credit had run. Lastly, my girlfriend and I walked directly across the courtyard to the Virgin Megastore to buy the soundtrack album. In doing so, we ran into two or three couples who'd just come from the same show.

NOTE: I intentionally left my review of this film as vague as possible because I didn't want to ruin anything for anyone who hasn't yet seen this film. All I can say is that, unless your heart is a chunk of bloody coal, you must see this film, preferably with someone you love. I can tell you the exact scene in which said "special someone" will lay their head upon your shoulder, but that too might ruin it.

So, enough already, go see this film.

A couple songs from the film to further entice you:

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