Once (Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová)

(Amazon UK link)

We wanted a reasonably short DVD to watch, and the film ‘Once’ is just 83 minutes. We hadn’t seen it since 2014 and couldn’t remember it at all, but coincidentally had seen a trailer for it on a different DVD that we re-watched recently. So we knew it involved music and a possible romance, but not much more.

It opens with a guitarist busking in a street in Dublin. Glen Hansard plays the main protagonist, although we never learn his name. He’s being approached by someone who looks a tad dodgy, and they have an exchange with such strong Irish accents that we couldn’t understand a single word… other than a repeated strong expletive. There’s a dramatic chase, with yet more incomprehensible dialogue other than swearing.

This turns out to be the prologue for the film, and involves the only conflict of the entire film. The guitarist is singing when a Czech immigrant girl (whose name we also never learn - played by Markéta Irglová) stops to chat. They don’t exactly have any rapport, but when she learns that he’s a vacuum cleaner repairman during the day, she asks if he would look at her broken vacuum cleaner.

The girl is also a musician - a pianist - and agrees to accompany the guy in making an album, which he hopes will make him rich and famous. And that’s basically the whole story. There are moments of mild humour - when she treats her vacuum cleaner as if it were a dog, or when he asks if she composed some Mendelssohn music she was playing - but they are rather outnumbered by tedium.

The film is supposedly a ‘modern’ musical, but the camera work is shaky in the extreme, making me feel seasick in a couple of places. And the musical interludes are far too lengthy - the music is perhaps the best part of the film, although it was hard to tell the difference between some of the songs. But the two main characters are talented musicians. However the dialogue is, for the most part, trite and says very little. Much of it could have been cut. And though the music was well done, I didn’t much like the style, particularly the high notes of some of the songs, and the accompanying images are unoriginal and repetitive.

It’s not often that I keep glancing at the clock during a film; it felt like a very long 83 minutes, and very little actually happens. It wasn’t dreadful - other than the irritating use of the same expletive over and over - but I never could quite believe in either of the two characters when they were together. They went well musically, but although they converse naturally as friends, their personal ‘romantic’ chemistry is non-existent - I had no idea whether or not they would eventually get together.

There are some mildly interesting scenes in their homes - the guy works with his father, the girl has a mother and young daughter - but nothing that really builds character, and nothing unexpected. It’s not that I like conflict, exactly, but with no real story, and no problems occurring (other than in the prologue - and that one is quickly sorted) we didn’t feel particularly interested.

One of the reviews on the back of the DVD says that it’s worth watching ‘twice’.; I suppose that’s meant to be a kind of joke related to the title of the film - but perhaps it’s also prophetic. Having now seen it twice, we have no plans to see it again.

Really not recommended. 

Then again, it’s been very highly rated by others, so maybe we were missing something…

Review copyright 2022 Sue's DVD Reviews