Exquisite!

Rating: 9/10 (27 October 2008)

I had serious doubts about Once after watching the trailer. It made it seem like a sappy and contrived genre love story, but this film is anything but. It is heartbreakingly sincere and dwarfs the stereotypical sappy fare that is constantly in movie theaters. The music is beautiful, the story is sweet, and "the guy" and "the girl" are absolutely lovely. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are great actors and incredibly talented musicians. I cannot believe the quality of this film considering that it was filmed in seventeen days and cost under $200,000 to make. It just goes to show you, big budgets are not a prerequisite for brilliant film-making. Incredible.