I saw this film in a small theatre last evening (Friday Aug. 17) with 75-100 others and simply was enthralled. It is deserving of a severe rating for harsh and explicit language issues but the Restriction ("R") is really missing the spirit of this highly commendable film made in 2006 to be targeted at a young adult audience. What the pop-rock music conveys is the skill and tunefulness and pride in one's creative juices versus the over-produced and technically questionable extreme loud general audience Pop music of recent years. The Dublin setting for "Once" comes across as noisy and authentic and the situations work well to link the songs in a way that other youth musicals gone to the movies (prime examples of which are "Rent" and "High School Musical") just don't ultimately succeed in persuading viewers of a certain sophistication. I am not quite keen of hearing to catch part of what happened in some of the sections of the movie where the dialect Irish accented people were given lines but the main character is easily understood and the female lead didn't always get her Czech subtitled. The Soundtrack for this film will likely sell lots and lots of copies later this year - - I am hoping that an Oscar nomination is in the realm of possibility for those music specialists in the Academy who are paying attention to small masterpieces like this 85-minute film! See "Once" yourself in a theatre and don't just wait for its DVD premiere!
Review of Once
