Once
Director: John Carney. Screenplay: John Carney. Cinematography: Tim Fleming. Film editing: Paul Mullen. Production design: Tamara Conboy. Music: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová. Producer: Martina Niland. With: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Bill Hodnett, Danuse Ktrestova, Geoff Minogue, Marcella Plunkett, Alaistair Foley, Kate Haugh, Senan Haugh, Darren Healy, Gerard Hendrick, Catherine Hansard, Pat McGrath, Sean Miller, Leslie Murphy, Wiltold Owski, Pete Short, Krzysztos Tiotka, Hugh Walsh, Mal Whyte, Praghosa. Ireland. 85 min. 2006.
This is one of the best recent films about an Irish vacuum-cleaner repairman who falls in love with a Czech flower saleswoman he meets while singing for euros on a Dublin sidewalk. The music is catchy but unmemorable, even though Glen Hansard hails from a popular Irish pop group (the Frames) and Irglová is also a pro, and the movie is irksomely coy in some respects—the way it calls the main characters just the Guy and the Girl, for instance. Still, the mood is amiable, the acting is nicely understated, and the bittersweet ending is refreshingly offbeat.
– David Sterritt
