Once
2006
Director: John Carney
Starring: Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova
A Guy (Hansard) and a Girl (Irglova) meet in Dublin. Both are musicians without an outlet, both are working menial jobs to barely make enough money to get by, and both have recently been dealt losses in their love lives. Drawn together by music, they rehearse and record an album of the guy’s original songs, all while a strong romantic attraction between them looms in the background.
This is an incredibly sweet film. “Sweet” can be such a terrible word, but I mean it un-ironically here. The growing affection between the guy and girl feels natural and unforced but still manages to make me feel all warm and glowing on the inside; even better, it has realistic missteps. Early on in the film, the guy invites the girl back to his bedroom and asks her to spend the night, to which she replies, “Fuck this,” and leaves. He feels stupid, and must make amends later. Little glitches like this in their relationship make it feel far more relatable. As Shakespeare said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” I really appreciate that about the film; it manages to set the romance apart from the thousands of other stereotypical film romances.
