Once: A Review

One of my favorite music moments was about 13 years ago. Spending some time in Britain, I traveled up one weekend to St. Andrews to visit a friend who was spending a year studying there. We had forged a friendship first through our shared love of the guitar, and after we spent some time touring this great town, we found ourselves holed up in his room passing his guitar back and forth. We shared songs we knew, songs we were working on, and in the course of conversation, spent some time writing a couple of tunes. We certainly weren’t masters (well, I wasn’t, he was actually quite talented) but in the rich moments of sharing music and poetry, the quality faded to the background as we drank deeply from the beautiful bonds of music.

It’s this kind of experience that drives Once, the fascinating ultra-low budget “modern-day musical” that just took home an Oscar for Best Song. It stars Glen Hansard, who plays “Guy,” a true starving musician who makes his living playing guitar on the streets of Dublin. One night, “Girl”, played by Marketa Irglova, listens to him singing some of his original work, songs that he tends to only play during the slow hours. She is impressed, and over the next few days they get to know each other a little bit. She herself is a keyboardist, and as they start to share their lives, they start to share their songs.

The film could quickly turn into a traditional romantic comedy, but it avoids the pitfalls. It is a love story, though, it’s just a love story about the music. She connects him with a friend that runs a studio and persuades him to take a weekend and record some of his stuff. They gather some musicians together, and thus begins a rich weekend of musical creation.

“Guy” is an amazing talent, and in the course of the weekend we get to witness the process of musical creation. The style of the film dominates, and I expect that one’s enjoyment of the movie hinges greatly on one’s ability to enjoy its documentary/reality style and the Irish folk/pop style of the music. I enjoyed the first, and was captivated by the second. As the music unfolds, their conversation becomes the occasion to talk about the hurts of their past, their hopes for the future, and the anxieties they carry in the present. In all, the healing salve for both of them will be found in the music.

I love the sense of restraint in Once. It’s hard to watch these two interact and not root for some kind of relationship to emerge. But that isn’t what this is about. As one reviewer put it, this movie is “a little ditty about a girl he once knew.” But in that restraint is the film’s strength. It believes in its own message about the power of music to connect, to process our past, and to heal.

As I’ve thought about the movie, I’ve thought about musical moments with friends like the one I opened with. I’ve had a lot of enjoyable musical moments, and a few especially powerful ones. Many of these people aren’t still in my life, but I’m grateful for the healing power the shared moments we had provided and the meaning they had for me along the way. It’s a picture of grace for the moment, the grace that comes into our lives and provides us what we need when we need it. It doesn’t solve everything, but it doesn’t have to. It just helps us keep on moving.

I’m glad to see this movie get some attention, because it offers an intimate picture of relationship and healing that’s worth talking about. It certainly made me pull out my guitar and sing a few songs from my own past, enjoying singing a few stories about life along the road.