I saw the film Once yesterday at our local art house joint, and enjoyed it quite a bit.
It’s a musical, of sorts – not hard to do, since the characters are all musicians, so it makes sense that they break into song, since they’re always singing anyway. It’s all very organic and all that. It’s also scruffy and indie and actually rather moving. You have to like music a lot to like it, though – I think someone who wasn’t really into music, especially folk-rock type music, would tire of it – just to be honest. And there’s some use of the “F” word, especially at the beginning (when the street singer is chasing a thief who makes off with his paltry earnings of the day), but it would be  a shame if that put you off of this really remarkable little film.
Remarkable because it is about the ability of art to impact us, to change our lives, to reveal what is true about our lives – the real truth, which is all about calling us to be the best people we can be.
Short synopsis: a street performer in Dublin, who repairs vacuum cleaners to make money, meets up with a Czech emigre, who turns out to have some musical ability herself. There are surprises along the way, which I will not reveal, but by the end of the 83 minutes, you have seen a change in the soul of the main character and even a subtle re-commitment, a firming up of resolve, on the part of the emigre, and it is all for the good.
Barbara Nicolosi says all I want to say here.