Once

I have a bit of a different review today. I have just finished watching 'Once', a modern Irish musical set in Dublin. The movie is about an Irish street musician/vacuum repairman who meets a Czech woman. This Czech woman and Irish man develop a friendship and decide to record a demo album for the Irish man to take to London so he can try and make it big time! It's an incredibly real story with many charmingly human moments.

The movie is considered a musical. They sing plenty of full songs throughout the film. These songs relate how they are feeling and aid in the story progression. What sets this one apart is that when they sing it makes sense. They don't break into song in a coffee shop and have a big dance number. They will be sitting in the studio singing the song while working on writing it. Because of this shift in style I honestly forgot about the fact that is was a musical even though they were singing all the time! It just felt like a movie about musicians.

The story is absolutely charming. This film grabs your attention with the very first scene and keeps a tight hold of it til' the very end. You are invested in each character and you really want things to turn out well for them. There is a lot of back story and little character twists which just increase your connection to the story. It literally made me laugh, cry, and smile.

I do want to warn that it is rated 'R'. It's set in Ireland and the people curse like Irishmen. It's not angry or insulting that I can remember, they just periodically use F as an adjective. Mostly there are two or three scenes that have a lot of cursing and the rest is pretty clean cut. That's the only thing that makes it 'R'. If you can take it, I would say it's worth it.

As for the music itself, I loved it! I am seriously considering buying the soundtrack to this movie, it's so beautiful and heartfelt.

'Once' is a great film. Beautiful, emotional, sweet, and engrossing. It leaves you happy and content. I definitely recommend it.