Once (2007)

I remember "absent-mindedly" watching the Academy Awards last February and noticing one of the nominees for best song was just a man on the guitar and a woman on the piano singing a song called "Falling Slowly." It was so unpretentious that it really stood out among the other songs--and absolutely everything else in Hollywood--and to my surprise it became one of the few pieces of art to win that actually deserves to win. Glen Hansard gave an acceptance speech and ended it saying, "Make art. Make art. Thanks." But the orchestra started playing before Marketa Irglova could talk. So after the commercial break, Jon Stewart asked her to come back up and give her speech. I think he new a good thing when he saw it. Both of their speeches are posted here and are pretty inspiring. 

So it took me a while to see the movie but it was well worth seeing. Hansard plays a vacuum cleaner repair man--or as he calls himself, "a broken-hearted hoover fixer sucker guy"--who writes songs and plays on the streets of Dublin, Ireland. He plays covers of Van Morrison and the like during the day because he figures most people want to hear songs that they know. (As a sometime musician, I know that's true). But at night, when the streets are empty, he plays his original work. The song that he plays during the title sequence is intense and draws the attention of Irglova, a Czech immigrant who lives with her mother and her young daughter, and works variously selling roses on the street and as a house cleaner. 

Irglova recognizes the beauty of his original work and presses him about it. She finds that many of his songs are written about his ex who has since left him and moved to London. She correctly deduces that he isn't over her despite his denial and that deep down he wants to move to London to win her back. However, he's stuck in a rut, living in his dad's house and his life not moving anywhere. 

But their friendship grows, and Irglova, who is a classically-trained piano player, finds that she complements his music perfectly. And so the movie is a musical where the musical interludes actually make sense because the characters are musicians who are writing, rehearsing and recording their songs. Though it is a little bit of a stretch how perfectly they play their songs on the first try, but, of course, it's a movie. 

There's not much story, but the characters draw you in. Irglova is so cute and talented and Hansard is also very talented but a little awkward and lonely and wants to make the relationship work out. Implicitly in this movie, you can see how a man and a woman can look at the same situation very differently. But the end of the movie is correct. It's fair play.

But the movie is excellent and like Hansard said at the Academy Awards, they've made art.