Once

The movie watcher should not expect a scintillating plot from "Once" but the music lover will cherish the crux of the movie - the music. With haunting melodies and intriguing timing, the music will stay in your mind for days. You'll want to buy the soundtrack CD just to hear it as often as you can. You will not be surprised that the song "Falling Slowly" won an Oscar for best original song in a movie in the 2007 Academy Awards. Glen Hansard's beaten up and ragged looking guitar still makes wonderful music in his hands. His voice, along with Marketa Irglova's, combine beautifully to make the music unforgettable.

This movie is wonderful. It doesn't "end" as most movies do - it leaves on with the feeling of real life - you can feel the characters moving forward.

This is a superb film . . .very independent, produced on a tiny budget--the director actually gave his salary to the two lead actors. Neither Glen Hansard or Marketa Irglova is a trained or experienced actor . . .both are singer/songwriters, and they are absolutely brilliant. This film will inspire even the hardest of hearts. No one needed to be "perfect" or "experienced," because you feel like you are watching a moment of two people's lives, very natural and real. And the main song from the movie, "Falling Slowly," won a well-deserved Academy Award--it's one of those gems of a song that comes along very, very rarely and changes your life. If I could give the film 100 stars, I would. Highly recommended!
~Amy R.

Yeah, I don't buy many movies, as I generally only watch a movie once ever. But after watching Once about the 5th time, I decided this would make a good video to double my video collection.
It's an incredibly hard movie to explain- It's so different than anything else I've seen. I've watched it with 20+ people, probably, and no one has ever not liked it. It's pretty amazing. The music is downright awesome.
Can you tell I liked this movie?

Make no mistake, this is a movie made by musicians, *for* everyone, but *about* the power and magic of making music. If you are the kind of person who can hear Glen Hansard tell his band "OK, it's in 5/4" and go, REALLY?!! then ONCE is the movie you have been waiting for these many years. I have shown it to audiences of 12-18 year old kids who sat riveted through the whole thing, (very mild) adult content and all, when three years ago they'd have been watching cartoons. If you love gentle romance, music, Ireland or any combination of the three, I cannot recommend ONCE highly enough. The one suggestion I would have, especially in showing it to others who don't hear a lot of Dublin accents, is to turn on the English subtitles. It really helps to know exactly what they're saying when they get going fast or the crowd noise rises.

And it's not central to the movie or the review, but I can't leave without saying - How cool is it! - that Glen Hansard has a leading role in the two great Irish music movies of modern times. Fair play, as he'd say. Ten cent! Brilliant.