Once Film Review

ONCE FILM REVIEW/Luthy

JOHN CARNEY’S MUSICAL FEATURES DISMAL ACTING

By Allison Luthy

John Carney’s new film, “Once,” valiantly attempts, but fails, to redefine the genre of musical. Where a normal musical would have songs expanding on the dialogue, “Once” features a man who carries his guitar with him and starts singing songs unrelated to the plot.

While the music itself was not bad, its placement in the movie was. The entire movie seemed built around getting from one song to the next, with bits of plot and dialogue thrown in to serve as transitions. Anyone hoping for more from the writer than a fourteen-year-old’s choppy English paper will assuredly be disappointed.

Carney made the decision to cast musicians rather than actors in the film. This
choice did make the performances at times painful to watch, but gave “Once” the ability to let its one good feature stand out—its music. There is so much focus on the Oscar-nominated soundtrack that at times the movie feels more like a series of music videos than a story.

Set in Ireland, “Once” depicts the life of a street musician who works in his father’s vacuum shop and aspires to one day be a recording artist. Playing guitar on the street one day he meets a Czech immigrant who needs her vacuum fixed. After he agrees to fix it for her, he finds out that she can play piano and sing as well.

With her help, he forms a small band and records his music in a studio so he can take it to London and get a music contract. While they are working on the recording, the man unsurprisingly falls for the girl. Their romance is prevented, however, by his slow recovery from his past breakup and her marriage to the absent father of her child.

Glen Hansard tries to play the part of the sad man recovering from a breakup with his unfaithful girlfriend. He blunderingly only ends up resembling an abused dog at the humane society that everyone feels sorry for but no one wants to adopt and eventually gets put to sleep. Unfortunately, in the instance of this movie, euthanasia is not an option either for the actor or the audience members.

The movie as a whole is overdramatic in its attempts to be viewed as artistic. With scenes of the musicians standing on a cliff overhanging the North Sea discussing love, much of the footage could be reused in any independent arts film. The acting and writing through most of “Once” try to hard to be unique for an independent film, resulting in only
being generic in the extreme.

The redeeming qualities of “Once” are not nearly enough to make up for the poor acting and the pathetic writing. Those looking for good music should just buy the album and save themselves 85 minutes in an uncomfortable seat.