Once

Once is a movie that walks a very thin, very taut, and very treacherous tightrope. It's the cinematic equivalent of the bridge scene in Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear. Oh, who am I kidding? That scene itself is cinema, so how could something else be its cinematic equivalent? Besides, Wages of Fear is a taut, lean almost-noir and Once is... well, it's not.

I stand by the tightrope remark, though. You may have seen trailers for Once. Do not believe them. The marketing makes it seem like a conventional love story, but it is so much more than that. They make the movie seem like a romance driven by music. It's really about music raised to the level of romance. That's why it's such a balancing act. If all the elements aren't handled with skill and finesse, the whole enterprise could collapse into something maudlin and ugly to behold.

It doesn't. Once is the story of Guy (Glen Hansard) and Girl (Marketa Irglova). He's a vacuum repairman/songwriter/busker and she's an immigrant from the Czech Republic who hears him and strikes up a conversation. He's writing plaintive songs about a girl who left him and she's alone in Dublin with her mother and toddler daughter. The only names they have are Guy and Girl, and her attempt to get her vacuum repaired leads to a lunch-time collaboration at a music store. You see, she cannot afford a piano of her own, so the store owner lets her play at lunch. Guy and Girl are on the same page musically from the downbeat.

At this juncture it seems that Once is about to spiral into conventional romantic territory, but it turns into something much subtler and harder to depict. The two leads connect so completely on a musical level that Guy keeps thinking it's love, but Girl is more practical and hard-headed. Really, after the movie is over, you can see that Guy is something of a dreamer and a sap. He needs the kick in the ass that Girl gives him, first to go to London and reconnect with the old girlfriend and then to record his songs in order to shop them for a record deal. Writer/director John Carney navigates skilfully around possible pitfalls. Hansard (who leads the Irish band the Frames and was in 1991's The Commitments) and Irglova are both honest actors and the fact that they actually write and perform their own music makes the act of creation palpable. The long central sequence of recording Guy's songs could be the spot where the movie stalls out, but instead it really captures the feel of people going for something that they need, driven past fatigue by their love of, the necessity of making music. Carney moves so surely and swiftly through his story that you barely notice that Hansard must be twenty years older than Irglova, but maybe that's the point. Maybe Carney wants to say that if you connect deeply enough with another person on any level, then differences like age drop away. I really liked the way that the almost mystical connection the two characters share over music doesn't become a cure-all and romantic balm. If it did the movie would be sentimental treacle.

I have performed music and drama for over thirty years now. I have found that rapport in the musical arena doesn't mean that you connect with someone in any other area. One guy with whom I have an almost telepathic stage relationship drives me insane in every other way. Another fellow, a dear friend and musician, is the guy with whom I go to the movies and have long, coffee-fueled talks and listening sessions. As much as we both love music, we don't have that connection when we play together. Things have to be spelled out in much more detail, but he's a better friend.

Once revolves around that conundrum; that someone who perfectly relates to the deepest, most personal part of ourselves isn't necessarily our soulmate. The ending is perfect; really it's the only ending that wouldn't feel like a betrayal. I walked out of the theater feeling good, inspired and alive. I think you should definitely see Once.