Once

A week ago I wrote about falling in love with Keira Knightly, the young lady in Begin Again.
Quite a few of the reviews of that movie compared it to a film made in 2006, one also featuring a young man and woman who make beautiful music together. So I requested it through Netflix just to see if what they were all saying was true. Yup, it’s true. Once is a better movie than Begin Again. And, fickle fellow that I am, I threw Keira under the bus and pledged my love to the young lady in Once. In his review, Roger Ebert says this of the Girl: “She has the kind of smile that makes a man want to be a better person, so he can deserve being smiled at.” Her name is Marketa Irglova, only seventeen when this was made, and cute as a button (although I’m not sure I ever saw a cute button). She plays the Girl (no name used), having come to Ireland from the Czech Republic with her mother and young daughter. The Guy (no name used) works for his father repairing vacuum cleaners during the day and plays guitar and sings on the street weekends and evenings. The Guy (Glen Hansard) is a scruffy mid-thirties fellow who loves his music and loves to sing his songs, playing an acoustic guitar that’s every bit as scruffy as he is. The plot is simple. Girl sees him playing on the street, tells him she thinks he’s really good. They stroll, telling each other of their mutual attraction to music, both writing and performing, he on guitar, she on piano. She helps him actually get around to making a demo disc of his songs. The attraction between them keeps growing but is never realized. Her husband shows up and moves in with her; he leaves for London where he’ll peddle his demo disc and reunite with the girl who had betrayed him. No “they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after” ending here, just a poignant feeling that they will always stay connected through their music. I guess my living out here in the West has kept me from staying in touch with Broadway musicals, because Once in 2011 was turned into a highly successful musical, first off-Broadway and then on Broadway, winning the Tony for best musical of 2012. And I’m a faithful viewer of the Tony Awards and I didn’t remember this show’s winning. And in 2007 the centerpiece song from the movie, “Falling Slowly,” won the Oscar for best original song. So I’ve finally caught up with myself. If you’re as ignorant of this film/Broadway musical as I was, go to Netflix and get Once. You may, as I do, want to see it more than once.