CINEMA: Once

When a little film is universally praised, it is with some distance that it should be anticipated, otherwise buzz and expectation outstrip the end product. Once is this year’s Lost in Translation, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, etc – all quality films that touch the heart but hardly reinvent the wheel. As the almost inevitable hype hits Once remember that.

Anyone who doesn’t like their romances schmaltzy will find this very moving; even more so perhaps because so few movies hit the mark. They are usually so weighed down by sentimentality and formulaic plotting that the trailer signposts everything you will find out in the hour-and-a-half. Here, the low budget, DIY-feel helps an audience question a happy ending, and that lack of guarantee makes you invest all the more in the burgeoning attachment of a busker/vacuum repairman and Big Issue seller/cleaner (whose names you intriguingly never find out). Their chemistry is palpable. The glue that binds them is music. Both write and play and find that they reinvigorate each others’ slightly bruised souls.

What is striking about Once is not only the longing tone hits just right, but that it all feels so captivating; and the leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who are talented singers and lyricists, give believable performances despite being non-professional actors. If you are lucky enough to catch Hansard and Irglova perform together, seize it, as live, in an intimate surrounding, they are exhilarating.

Having now seen Once twice the charm of this uplifting film is all the more evident.     Hemanth Kissoon