I want to start off this review by thanking my good friend Chris Blanchett for introducing me to the world of Once. He is the one who suggested I check out this soundtrack from a movie called Once, this little nothing of a movie that completely captured his heart. So, Chris, thank you!

If you’ve never heard of Once or don’t know what I am talking about, then that’s great! Here at ToC, I get the privilege of introducing you to the wonderful and amazing little world of Once, a dramatic, romantic, musical filmed entirely around 2 characters, “Guy” (played by Irishmen Glen Hansard) and “Girl” (played by Czechoslovakian Markéta Irglová) in and around the streets of Dublin. This little movie that came out of nowhere utterly captured my heart with warmth, reality, authenticity, humility, and true love…all centered around some beautiful love ballads written by Glen and Marketa.

This movie shouldn’t work. It’s filmed on a shoestring budget with one camera starring very inexperienced actors, and yet it brims with small pleasures that pay major dividends. The story is simple, Hansard stars as a Dublin songwriter who takes his guitar to the streets and sings himself hoarse to people who could care less. He barely makes anything from playing, but that isn’t his goal, he just wants to sing his songs. Supplementing his non-existing singing career is his job as a Hoover vacuum repair man with his Dad. Can you get any more real or depressing than that? His life seems to be heading nowhere until he meets a pretty Czech pianist (Marketa Irglova) who gives him the guts to quit his dad’s repair shop and start finding the bucks to make a recording. That’s it for the story. It’s a bittersweet love story that has Hansard’s gorgeous music at the center with an aching romance for the soul.

There is something so hauntingly mesmerizing about the music that pervades this entire film. It’s music in its rawest form, no studio extras, no synthesizing, just emotion, heart, and a broken guitar with lyrics that paint a sad and bare picture of heartache. The film is driven by and depends on the power of the songs for its heart and they become indispensable towards the end of the film. It’s the uniting power of music that keeps this movie together, without Hansard’s songs this movie doesn’t work, it would fall away into oblivion just like every other small film. It would still be a good film if the songs played over the action as like in every other movie, but the fact that they drive the story, the fact that both Glen and Marketa actually sing them on film at the most poignant times in the story is what makes this film GREAT!

You can’t afford to miss this movie. In a world full of dramatizing and analyzing and “blockbustering” love, this is a quiet little film that shows the reality of love, the pain of love, the joy of love, the awkwardness of love…the song of love. Writer-director-musician Jon Carney (he played bass in Glen’s band “The Frames” until 1993) has made a sweet film, which elevates itself to an entirely different plane of film musicals, by using the simplicity of plot, character, and style to craft a sort of cinematic poem. After you see this movie, you will immediately want to buy the soundtrack and check out Glen’s band “The Frames…” because that’s what I did. Of course, I already had the soundtrack, I just moved it to the top of my iPod in listening priority.

We rarely fall in love at the movies enough, but this is one to adore.

Content Warning: Rated R for language. They use the “F” word as much as we would use the word “the” in a sentence. The funny thing is that because of their accents, it doesn’t seem as harsh sounding. Be warned, there is a lot of language, but believe me, it did not take away from the movie, it actually fit within the context of the story. It was more cute than harsh…you’ll just have to see for yourself.

…my expectations were RIGHT ON! This movie was cheese to the max! From the very start of the movie as the main character, played very averagely by newcomer Nikki Blonsky, is walking or running or skipping (I’m still not sure which mode she used) to school, she breaks out into song the entire way to the bus stop (which she of course misses due to her incessant singing). Who sings while going to school? Most teenagers I know are sleeping on their way to school. The one positive note from the first scene is that the song is sung very well by Nikki and the harmonies are catchy and poppy and in fact, though sad to say, I found myself singing “Good Morning Baltimore” at work on Monday morning.

It’s not a movie I am going to remember or even want to see again. Throughout the entire movie, I could not get over the fact that John Travolta was playing a woman in a fat-suit the whole time. That thought creeped me out every time I would hear him/her (argghh) speak, which by the way, was a very odd Baltimore accent. It sounded almost like Lily Tomlin channeling Ed Sullivan through very restrictive prosthetics. If that character didn’t exist, I might have liked the movie more. Why?! Just find a plus-sized lady to fulfill that role, why do you have to use a man in a woman suit??

I think the cynic inside of me is fighting to write a scathing review of such a mainstream bubble-gum movie-musical and although I wouldn’t ever watch it again, I can’t say I hated every minute of it. The songs are catchy and poppy, the colors are bright and bold, and it is nice to see a “plus-sized” actress get the lead and actually come out the heroine without having to debase herself too much. Overall, I was mildly entertained for a Sunday afternoon movie. It’s not one that I would pay for again, or even brag about seeing, but if my wife wants to watch again with me, I will.

Content Warning: This movie is rated PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking. This movie, although bubbly and innocent, has some pretty intense sexual innuendos. The young ones won’t get it and will enjoy the songs and colors, but if you are a teenager, you will definitely understand the sexual undertones. That was a very surprising element to the movie.

…I couldn’t have been more wrong in my judgments. The movie totally grabbed me up by my cynical body and shook out all of my preconceived notions. It’s set in the 1960’s, right around and amidst the controversial Vietnam War, where we find this group of young twentysomethings trying to discover who they are, what they are about, and what this world has prepared for them. We begin on a dreary beach in Liverpool with Jude (very Coldplay-esque, see “Yellow”), (most, if not all, of the names of the characters come from Beatles’ songs) who starts us off with his rendition of “Girl” which leads the audience right into the story.

The story, at times confusingly, follows Jude, a young college-age Liverpool boy, who is trying to find his way to the US to meet his real father. Along the way he befriends Max, a rich and spoiled, yet rebellious by nature, Ivy-league student who prefers to defy all authority and parental expectations, while at the same time, trying to suck everything out of life, for free of course. They head to New York to discover themselves, because that’s where you went in the 60’s if you were a twentysomething looking for an identity and/or a cause. Through an odd series of events, they end up living in this loft with a rag-tag bunch of people including, radical peace activists, a Janis Joplin-like singer named Sadie, a “Yoko Ono” character from Ohio who we think is a lesbian named Prudence, a Jimmy Hendrix character named JoJo who plays guitar for the Janis Joplin character, Max’s sister Lucy who is the All-American girl who eventually falls for Jude, and countless other “hippies” who just roam in and out throughout the film who we are to really pay no attention to.

Lining the entire movie like old wallpaper is this very anti-war undertone. I thought, at times, the message was a little too in your face. I was thinking, yeah, I get it, you (the director and makers of the film) don’t like war and are obviously making a statement about the Vietnam War while at the same time commenting on today’s war issues. I understand your feelings and I agree, let me tell you, but I wanted that to be 2nd to the developing characters and their struggle to find what they were supposed to fight for. I thought they did a pretty good job of balancing out the anti-war message with the characters and the story, but at times, it was a little too much.

If you are not at all into the 1960’s, psychedelic, hippy, crazy tie-dye colors, scene, then this movie might not be your cup of tea. Particularly the scene involving Bono, who plays some whacky doctor who leads this crazy tie-dye bus across the country whilst singing and preaching and at times spinning around…and then at some point they are in a field where giant scary Asian rabbits are leading the way to a one-man circus that involves little blue Popsicle people…I just re-read that sentence and even I don’t know what I saw. Basically, it’s a very trippy, crazy, bright, colorful, psychedelic, drug-induced scene that left my wife and I giggling a little bit because we weren’t sure what had just happened. But, hey, we got to see Bono.

Like Rent and Phantom of the Opera, all of the actors in this film sang the songs themselves, which very much impressed me. It really adds that something extra to the scene, knowing they had to really give it everything, not just in acting, but also in song, to nail their character. I love how each character individualized the songs they were required to sing. They really made it their own, yet still keeping and paying homage to the original creators themselves, the Beatles.

Overall, I would very much recommend this movie to rent for a Friday night. It’s not as romantic as I thought it would be, so it’s not really a romance fire starter, but as for music in films, it’s definitely one of my top 3. (I only have 3 at this point, but don’t tell anyone)

Content Warnings: After seeing the initial teaser trailer, I was a bit cautioned as to the amount of “fleshy” material that may be in the film, with it being set in the “free love” era of the 1960’s, but to be honest, save 2 scenes: 1 underwater scene where you do catch a few glimpses of a man’s butt and 1 figure drawing scene where Jude is drawing Lucy while she is sleeping and there is a short stint where her breasts are shown, the movie kept a pretty clean stature. It is rated PG-13 for some drug content, nudity, sexuality, violence and language. I would definitely not let youth under the age of 17 go see this movie, as I think it’s too intense in its imagery and its sexuality. Although there are only 2 scenes with actual nudity, being that it is set in that time period, some of the relationships are definitely sexual and a bit too real for youth.