John Carney at the Spirit AwardsLynn Lee revisits the 2007 Sundance hit Once as the current festival wraps up.
I was at Sundance in 2007—the only time I’ve ever been. It was one of the highlights of my life as a moviegoer, albeit more for the experience than the actual movies. While I enjoyed most of the films I saw there, few really stuck with me beyond the festival, with the exception of the lovely character study Starting Out in the Evening (which really should have gotten Frank Langella an Oscar nomination).
Somehow, I missed the true breakout success of Sundance that year—the low-budget Irish musical Once, which won the festival’s World Cinema Audience Award. It went on to become a critical darling, a sleeper indie hit, and even an Oscar winner for Best Original Song. How could I have passed on being one of the first in the U.S. to see it? Well, somehow I did, even though I became a fan when it arrived in theaters later that year.
Yet even now, on rewatch, I’m not surprised it flew under my radar during that first frigid, heady week in Park City. Set in Dublin and shot for less than $200,000, Once featured no stars or names of note; writer-director John Carney, though on the rise, was little known outside the UK at the time, and his two stars (Carney’s former bandmate Glen Hansard and Czech singer-songwriter Markéta Irglová) were musicians, not professional actors.
Moreover, apart from the music, Once is a slight film of modest pleasures and a decidedly understated affect. Most of the action takes place in nondescript spaces, the dialogue is minimal, and there’s no real conflict. There is a love story, but it’s a love that can only be consummated musically: the entire plot revolves around a guy and a girl (who are never named) making a record together before parting ways. Even though the guy awkwardly makes tentative overtures more than once, and even though the girl seems to reciprocate his feelings, it’s clear that their complicated personal situations make a real romantic relationship impossible. Thus their dynamic when they’re not singing plays out as a delicate evasion of their mutual attraction, which while refreshingly realistic, can also be frustrating. Hansard, who’d appeared on film before in The Commitments (1991), has a natural screen presence and isn’t afraid to wear his character’s heart on his sleeve; Irglová, on the other hand, is charming but much more restrained, which fits her character but also makes her more elusive.
But oh, that music. It’s glorious, and says everything that the guy, the girl, and the rest of the screenplay don’t. Each song is perfectly calibrated to the mood and import of the moment in which it appears, from Hansard’s passionate yowl, “Say It to Me Now”—our first real glimpse into his soul—to his bitter yet tender “All the Way Down,” as he ruminates on his ex-girlfriend, to Irglová’s gorgeous plaint of desire (“If You Want Me”) as she rushes out into the night in search of (what else?) batteries, to, of course, the film’s Oscar-winning duet of longing, “Falling Slowly,” when the guy-girl connection first snaps into focus. (Is it any wonder that Hansard and the much younger Irglová, who’d known and worked with each other for years, had a brief romance after making the film?) Even the all-night recording session that marks the film’s climax becomes an apt metaphor for the film itself—made on a shoestring, a wing and a prayer, and ending on a giddy note of elation as the ragtag team realizes hey, we’ve created something really great here.
Some critics at the time speculated whether Once was a harbinger of a new trend for movie musicals—away from glittery spectacle and towards a more naturalistic, indie ethos. That didn’t happen, for better or worse. Even Carney himself, in his next music-driven movie (Begin Again), essentially just created a glossier remake of Once, adding bona fide movie stars, recording stars, and Hollywood-friendly plot threads that threatened to overwhelm the main storyline. Still, Begin Again did manage to capture something of what made Once so special—the magic of forming and expressing a connection purely through music. Movies about musicians abound, but very few so effectively convey that particular kind of musical chemistry.
Begin Again, a glossier riff on Once?
Sing Street (2016) -John Carney's newest film playing the current festival
This year, wouldn’t you know, Carney has another musical film at Sundance—Sing Street, about a boy in ’80s Dublin who starts a band to get a girl. Early word is positive, though it’s too soon to tell whether it will have the kind of broader appeal Once enjoyed. If it does, I’m willing to bet at least part of its success, like that of Once, lies in its use of songs as an emotional canvas, incorporating and reflecting what makes its characters painfully, tenderly, and hilariously human. That kind of synchronicity is a lot more difficult to achieve than it sounds; the beauty of Once lies in making it look effortless.
Previously on Retro Sundance
Desert Hearts (86), Brave Little Toaster (88), Longtime Companion (90), Poison (91), Run Lola Run (99), You Can Count on Me (00), Memento (01), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (01)
Current Sundance
Birth of a Nation, Tallulah, Manchester by the Sea and Christine, Indignation, Certain Women