'Once' is a gem with music to keep

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Dec 21, 2007 | by WARREN EPSTEIN,

"Once" (2006) -- Imagine the sickeningly mainstream Hollywood movie "Music and Lyrics" as a hip, indie meditation on how a man and a woman can find themselves in the music they make together.

Instead of Hugh Grant's hasbeen rocker, "Once" gives us real- life Irish musician Glen Hansard, who plays a struggling street singer and vacuum cleaner repairman in Dublin.

Instead of Drew Barrymore's plant-care specialist and songwriting savant, we get Markta Irglov, a real-life musician from the Czech Republic who plays a migrant street flower hawker with her own hidden musical talents.

The two meet, and although it's clear they have romantic feelings for each other, for reasons that aren't clear until later, they can't act on them. Instead, they channel their passions into the music they write and play together, stealing time together at a local piano store.

Eventually, they end up in a recording studio. But don't make assumptions, based on the usual Hollywood formula, about what will happen next.

This is a low-key gem, and once you see it, you'll probably rush out to buy the phenomenal soundtrack. I did.

MORE ONLINE: See all of Warren's Back-Shelf Picks at cospringsfilm.blogspot.com.