Once
It’s my favourite independent film story; Once was made on just 130,000 Euros. This small budget romance story has since blown up. Now If you walk in London nowadays, you’ll be hard pushed not to find at least one poster for Once had a successful run on Broadway and now is belligerently everywhere in the West End. Just walk through Soho and you’ll see the guitar toting musical based on film based on a busker. And since its release in 2007, it has won an Academy Award, a Tony and hopefully will at an Olivier to that.
Since it is St Patrick’s Day, let’s have a look at this brilliantly charming Irish film Once.
Once is about the earnest and terrific relationship between busker and a immigrant, living off the music that they write. Guy is a street musician, busking for pittance on the street of Dublin, balancing his passion for performing, his broken heart and a job that earns him little. On one song, he comes across a girl, whose name is never revealed. Single mother and abandoned by the child’s dad, she is entranced by Guy’s songs and her own desire to make it in the music world. So without hesitation, the pair strike up a wonderful relationship in order to
Proof that if you have truly outstanding characterism and an endearing story, you can overcome the budget restraints. Once is an impeccable and earnest look at two people who want to make it in an industry. Because there is no glitz or glam here, and the fact the production was basically the artists; Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová taking to the streets of Dublin with renegade cameras. The chemistry between the pair is astonishing and the drive you into the story with their love for the songs, each other’s success and that is a quality you cannot replicate (or you can just in stage form.)
The real draw here is the music. Written and composed by Hansard and Irglova, the songs really do encapsulate the feelings here. Whether it be some unrequited admiration or in flashback form, it is a musical with a twist that doesn’t rely on suspension of disbelief. From the genius title track to the heart breaking ‘Say it to me Now’, Once is riddled with memorable tunes that can make or break you. Let’s not forget about the undeniable incredible ‘Falling Slowly’ which scooped the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Yes, this is one of my favourite independent stories because look at how big it has become. And truthfully, it warms you heart. Once is about the struggles of trying to make it and how that isn’t confined to the classrooms of Glee. It is a single mother who wants to play piano, a thirysomething guitar picker trying to subsidize his music obsession and it is people who have played in bars for so long but they do it for the love. You just need that one person to believe in you.
To now see it in the big lights of Broadway and the West End.
Well, anything is possible.
TTFN
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