Once

Small, sweet and winner of the World Cinema Audience Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Once provides as touching a relationship as any movie since Before Sunset. The Guy (Hansard) works part-time at his father’s vacuum cleaner repair business. Between small engines, he pines for a girlfriend recently departed for London and busks forlornly on Grafton Street. The Girl (Irglová) is an East European immigrant struggling with marital and financial problems. A talented pianist, she frequently takes refuge in an instrument shop where the owner is happy to let her play. A brief encounter with The Guy leads to tender quasi-romance and creative partnership. Over a few blissed-out days, the pair forge the pretty songs that punctuate the film. This unlikely musical incorporates its budgetary constraints into a naturalistic, free-flowing aesthetic. Mr. Hansard and Ms. Irglová’s unassuming performances add further verité notes. A word of ‘warning‘ though – one might require a Capacitance Indicator to record the delicate movement comprising John Carney’s film. Those who found Lost In Translation unbearably plotless would do as well to wait around for Die Hard 4. Everyone else, however, should emerge contented by the experience.