Once

A chance encounter between an Irish street musician and an attractive Czech immigrant marks a turning point in both their lives.

Once is a musical. Don’t lead the hand-held camera work and long tracking shots fool you, it’s a musical. Granted, the music in Once beats the crap out of any other musical I can think of as I write this, but it still has the same problem that all musicals seem to have. Namely, they sacrifice story for music.

Now, to be fair, Once doesn’t pretend for a second to be a big budget epic, but even so there isn’t much story here. It almost feels like the first chapter, rather than the whole book.

But, that said, what little story it has, it does tell well. The performers are all great as both actors and musicians, and director John Carney manages to give the film an authentic feel that never feels manufactured.