John Carney's Once is a movie for romantic music fans. The story is very simplistic, but also very honest, which gave it a refreshing and satisfying ending. It follows an Irish street musician in Dublin for about a week, during which time he meets and falls in love with a Czech girl. They both have an unrelenting love of music, which serves as the starting point for their relationship. But it's also the entire movie. They just sing songs together, too many songs, and it gets a bit old. Most of the songs are excellent, however, and in fact three in particular remain in my mind. It's no coincidence that they come at three of the most poignant moments in the movie. The first is when they first sit down and sing "Falling Slowly" together, the second is when the guy lets the girl write the lyrics to his song "If You Want Me," and the third is when we hear the girl sing a song she's written, "The Hill," but breaks down midway through and cannot finish.Unfortunately, I found nothing more to the movie than that: a story that was at times moving (but also at times confusing) with a lot of music that was at times touching (but also at times overbearing). The acting was underwhelming--it felt like two people trying to act natural and ignore the camera--and the excessive swearing took a lot away from the romance. Accents were difficult to understand throughout. I didn't like the camerawork much at all. Sometimes it worked, but one time in particular it very much did not. When they first sing "Falling Slowly" together, the camera moves around like an antsy child. The camera becomes a person trapped in the room with them, at once removing the intimacy and romance. They should've stuck it on a tripod and let the musicians do their thing. So, granted there are a lot of mistakes in this short indie feature, but there are also a lot of things done right. And at 85 minutes, I think the successes outweigh the failures, so check it out if your interest is piqued.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/