Review - Once

Once has been pretty much universally acclaimed since its release. It's been called the greatest love story of our time and won an Academy Award for its musical composition. It has been praised by Steven Spielberg and Roger Ebert among others. That said, I found it to be a boring, pretentious exercise in mediocrity. A film that doesn't name its characters, features almost no dialogue and tells the majority of the story, and by that I mean all of it, through song is certainly an interesting experiment with some merit. The songs are vibrant and inventive but there is little more worth noting. The story feels rushed and while I understand that the emotions at the center of the story are what is really important, I can't help but feel cheated that i didn't get to know more.
The films major strengths lie in its defiance of romantic conventions. Not once do the characters get together. Yet, their romance has been touted as one of the most genuine in recent films despite being painstakingly platonic. Additionally, the low-fi camerawork, sometimes a mark of independent films, seems simply to be shoddy workmanship in this film.
The movie is noteworthy because it succeeds in translating real, human emotions to film and is actually able to show the redemptive power of music. That's the ultimate theme of this movie, redemption in a variety of forms. Despite the fact that these characters don't end up together in the end, they still find redemption in each other and in their music and the fact that their salvation translates so magically to the screen is a real credit to director John Carney and its lead performers.
Ultimately though, the film feels like a fumbling attempt that tries too hard to be different. It is an ostentatious, pompous, bloated piece of work that is only not identifiable as such because of its unfamiliarity.