The Best Musical of This Generation

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2008)

I tend to think of myself as a movie critic. I do things by the four star system and you know what, it's rare I give movies four stars for the mere fact that you have to be perfect in every aspect. "Once" did just that and for this sole reason only, simplicity.
An Irish singer (Glen Hansard)and a closet Czech pianist (Marketa Irglova) happen to meet on the streets of Dublin and together they start making music together. Both are dealing with personal relationships in their lives but they both connect for the mere fact that they both want to play music together.
Like I've stated before, simplicity is the key. Director John Carney does do anything grand, he keeps the story very small, even to the extent where the leads could be referred to as "he" and "she." What makes this the best musical of this generation? Very simple, for the first time in as many years, I've never seen music forced into a script. What I've always hated about musicals is the idea that the script have to fit the songs that are at hand. Sometimes, that leaves stretches in where you wonder if the movie is going to a point of ridiculousness. But in "Once," it works the other way around. The music complements the script, which makes this movie all the more special.
The acting was Oscar-worthy but there had to be a connection between the two leads, which both Hansard and Irglova do provide. Their accents sometimes made it all the harder to hear what they might've said to each other, but at this point, you really don't care.
For all the bashers out there, wanting to give negative ratings, I'll say two things to that. One, if you watched it and genuinely hated this movie with all your guts, then fine, I can accept that because your views sometimes just don't align with mine. But for everyone else that just bashes it, and I've read comments where it looks like that haven't even seen the trailer of this film, don't comment. This movie isn't going to be for everyone because honestly, maybe less than half of America might be moved for musicals, who knows. All I know is that if you give this movie a chance, it will be not only the best musical you've seen this year, but for the past 20 years.