Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy

Wah, wah, wah, are typical lyrics for an emo-screamo boy band struggling with a complicated life. This is the opening impression from the film Once, a dark horse candidate in movie ratings. Once unfolds pinching the mind with its non-fairytale romantically dramatic story line, genuine onscreen chemistry, and incredible soundtrack capturing art with an average family camcorder.

Once a 2006 Irish musical directed by John Carney, stars two musicians, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, in the only film roles they plan to see in their lives. Their devoid acting resumes were of no consequence as their genuine chemistry developed a romantic friendship onscreen. Once symbolizes a significant real life memory, a typical start to a daydream. Roller coasting through a developing friendship, answers to love’s complexities are searched for within the complimentary pair’s songs.

Low budget, amateur actors, and a wobbly camera showed the headlining movie industries that a regression back is sometimes needed to capture real feeling. From heroin inhabited street corners to Irish Atlantic coastline, the beauty and disparity of life was compared in both setting and plot. As the film unfolds a “Girl,” Marketa Irglova, finds “Guy,” Glen Hansard, with a musical passion similar to her own. From a fantasy-like motorcycle ride, questions of love arise between the two yet problems presist with the girl’s husband and infant daughter. Hansard’s emotional heart broken songs stem from an unfaithful ex-girlfriend who has moved to London. The two find refugee in the release that music brings them while falling for one another.
Raw emotion and intimate filming really did the movie its justice. A brilliant example came in a scene with the girl tugging a Hoover vacuum cleaner down Irish streets, next to her newly acquainted Guy friend, following the deliverance of their first song in a public music shop. Realistic yet novelistic the much under budget filming truly captures an everyday sense of human life with unexpected encounters that only happen once. Embarrassing as the Girl first appears giving only a dime to Guy, her character is inevitably believable. A quick mental search targets her as an acquaintance known back in younger more vulnerable years.

Trumping the rest is the soundtrack to the movie. Incorporation of Irish rock band The Frames, the lead singer playing Guy, gave a new age feel to the musical. Director John Carney still utilized music for character development in songs like "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy" yet branched out allowing emotion and feeling to take a forefront in the songs like "Once" and "Falling Slowly." "When Your Mind's Made Up," promoted the soundtracks nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, and Best Song Written for Motion Picture in the Grammy Awards. Once plastered the walls with awards and heads the top ten lists of numerous prestigious critics’ lists for films in 2007.

A slow beginning gave rise to a very mindfully artistic film that hit the triple threat for emotional, intellectual, and acoustic uniqueness. A film that took a different path in producing a musical that, possibly serendipitously, ended in nothing short of success. Hope persists that future films will follow the path pointing the sinking boat back home, the lyric still turning over in the subconscious.