Once DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

I'm wondering if I got the wrong movie. Seriously. I was skeptical enough of this schmaltzy-looking romantic musical thing, even as the astounding reviews kept pouring in. I chalked it up to all the critics having dates that week. Who knows. It ended up the year being the best-reviewed film on Rotten Tomatoes with a percentage in the high 90's. I don't really want to check it though because I don't want to read all these uber-praising words for a movie that I didn't think was that damn good at all, LET ALONE be classified as the best-reviewed film of the year. I have a few theories on why that is so, though.

Theory 1: Visual Impairment.

OK. The one and a half stars here are almost exclusively given to the incredibly beautiful songs that writer-director John Carney wrote and lead actors Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform. I normally don't dig softer kind of stuff like this, but these songs are really quite touching and Hansard and Irglova, who has an Aimee Mann sort of soulful singing voice, are really talented performers. That being said, if my theory is true, they were almost TOO effective. I contend that people were spending so much time crying over the songs in the film that their eyes were so watery and distorted they couldn't see how craptastic the actual "story" played out. Honestly, what REALLY happens here, folks? Hansard meets Irglova. They share tastes in music. They start to collaborate. They get some people to record a demo and, basically, that's it. I'm sorry for "spoiling" it for you, but consider it a gift of 86 minutes you never have to open.

Theory 2: Confusion of Art With Indecisiveness

I've heard people call this a musical, and that is just rubbish. Of the many things it's not, it's certainly not a musical. While it's true music is at the core of the story, that doesn't qualify it for a musical. The music and the songs here don't enhance the story like any musical does, they practically BECOME the story. Writer-director John Carney also apparently tried to make this a musical while shooting it like a doc*mentary. The film is chocked full of the doc*mentary style of shooting and this film really feels like a doc*mentary about fictional characters who have never met before and form a relationship of sorts that revolves around music. He also tries to throw a love story in the mix as well, and this only serves the floss-thin storyline that tries to hold all this crap together. You can call it "bold" or "inventive" because it tries so many things, but what it really is is sloppiness and an experiment that failed horribly. Sure, Carney borrows a few little tricks like the line Irglova speaks in Czech that we never learn the meaning from, obviously ganked from Lost In Translation, and his Good Will Hunting-esque ending, but be fooled not, movie-watchers. Maybe Carney even tried to challenge the notion that film is a VISUAL medium by innundating us with songs throughout the film to take our attention away from the fact that what we actually see on the screen is just hogwash filmmaking.

OK, so it was only two theories, but I think I made my point. While Hansard and Irglova have nice chemistry together, they really aren't much of actors at all, although that could be due to the lack of a script that only developed the characters so that all the friggin songs had some meaning and for no other reason. Carney's ending here isn't a typical Hollywood ending either, which I'm sure most praised, but, when you think about it, it brings up the question, why the hell did we watch this in the first place? When I found out what the title meant (hit up the Trivia page on the film's IMDB listing) it brings it into context a little bit more... but Carney went about conveying that message in such a loose and ambiguous manner that it almost cancels that meaning out.

Once is just plain not a good film. While it features a lush and lovely soundtrack, it only serves as a reminder that, as important as music is in life and in film... it certainly isn't everything, especially when making a film.

Making a Modern-Day Musical is up first here, and it really only magnifies what I was saying. Carney admits he wanted to, with this film, try to "marry the two" as in film and music and he wanted it to be more about the music and didn't need a "perfect script." Carney was the bassist for The Frames, a band that Hansard was the lead singer of, which also explains a lot. It gets boring because their explanations for everything only illuminates what I thought was wrong with the movie, and they thought it was right. It isn't terribly long at 12 minutes, and if you disagree with everything I said, you'll love it. If not, snoozeville.

More Guy, More Girl is basically the same thing. Oh, I forgot to mention before: Hansard's character name is Guy, and Irglova's character name is Girl. Seriously. Lame. It's really just the same thing as above with a different name: the same random behind-the-scenes stuff and explanations and such, but it's the same shades of boredom as before. I'm sure fans will love the behind-the-scenes stuff because it shows how utterly collaborative this seemed to be... but it just shows me that it was a collaborative effort from a bunch of people who really don't know what they're doing, as far as making a film, that is. Anyway, it runs about 9 minutes long and it bored me like the other one did.

The only other thing we get here is a Webisodes and it's just absolutely STUPID. It is just the mini-song from the bus, Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy, which was actually one of my favorite songs, but they just show us a series of STICK FIGURES illustrating the lyrics. I'm dead friggin serious. Stick figures that look like they were drawn by a two-year-old donkey. Insanity. There is also a DVD-ROM feature where you can download the Falling Slowly song from the soundtrack.

The "film" is presented in the widescreen format, in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

You can hear all the smashing songs nicely in the Dolby Digital Surround Sound format.

Not bad, I guess. The front is as bare-bones as the film itself, with a shot of Hansard and Irglova walking down the street with a title card above it and a critic quote above that. The back has a few more critic quotes, a misleading synopsis, a special features listing, some random pics from the movie and the billing block and tech specs. Eh...

Look, I'll be the first one to say how important music is to a film. It heightens your emotions and enhances the story you're seeing on screen by bringing that dynamic that only music can. However, I'll also, apparently, be one of the first to say that simply the art of music isn't the ONLY thing important to a film, which is apparently what they were trying to say here. Hell, even three-minute music videos have a more solid story structure than this disjointed piece of celluloid. They all could've at least tried to learn something from THAT aspect of music before jumping head-first into Once.

I know this film has a fanbase and many of you will hate this review, but I encourage you to speak your mind on this. Either leave a comment below or email me at bgallagher@movieweb.com because I really want to know why everyone loves this film, because I certainly didn't and it appears I'm in the vast minority. Thanks. Peace in. Gallagher out!