More than a decade ago, Once graced the big screen and became an overnight shock success. The film, much like its main characters (credited simply as Guy and Girl), was quiet in its approach, but lasting in its power.
The film certainly had the odds stacked against it. Once was shot in 17 days with a budget of just $150,000. Its stars, Glen Hansard (frontman of the Irish band The Frames) and Marketa Irglova, had limited acting experience. In fact Irglova, who was then just 17 years of age, is said to have been extremely uncomfortable in front of the camera. Hansard, meanwhile, was initially expected just to write the movie’s soundtrack. He stepped in only after Cillian Murphy, of Peaky Blinders fame, backed out of production. Murphy realised himself that the film would be more authentic, and better, if Hansard performed his own music.
Once tells a story of a down-on-his-luck busker, who makes his living fixing vacuum cleaners, and a young single mother who happens to be a talented pianist.
Guy and Girl start a shaky friendship after he agrees to fix her broken hoover (“broken-hearted hoover fixer sucker guy” that he is). They discuss their passion for music and eventually decide to collaborate on an album together. Through the process, the two independent artists fall in love, both picking up the pieces of themselves from past failed relationships. Like much of the movie, though, the romance is almost surprisingly subdued; Guy and Girl don’t even kiss, and both characters end up reconciling with past partners. In fact, the closest the movie ever gets to a declaration of love happens at the tail end of the film, when Guy gifts Girl a piano.
Once has been lauded as a musical for people who hate musicals, which is somewhat ironic given that it was adapted into a successful Broadway production in 2016.
“I kept thinking, ‘How do you make a modern musical?’ ” explained the film’s writer and director John Carney to the New York Times in 2007. “Then it became clear that I could do it just like a small indie art-house movie, very naturalistically. I could create a world where it’s O.K. to break into song, without an orchestra coming up out of nowhere.”
The indie soundtrack arguably became even more acclaimed than the movie. The ballad ‘Falling Slowly’ wound up winning Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards, and both Irglova and Hansard took centre stage in front of Hollywood’s elite to give a gorgeous, moving, and memorable rendition of the heartbreaking song.
This is particularly interesting to look back on now given the rising tide of big-budget music movies in Hollywood. In recent years we’ve seen La La Land and Bohemian Rhapsody loom large over the Oscars and stir audiences with exciting soundtracks. This year, films like the Beatles fantasy Yesterday and the Elton John biopic Rocketman kept up the trend – though neither looks to be at the same level in terms of Oscar contention. With some of the UK’s cash-out betting sites typically including the Oscars among the events they post odds for, we’ll be starting to see who the favourites are for this year’s awards quite soon, and it’s doubtful that either of these films will garner much attention.
These films have, however, done well at the box office, which is ultimately more important for the ongoing trend of musical features. Rocketman earned nearly $200 million on a $40 million budget, while Yesterday netted about $145 million with a $26 million budget. Those are awfully impressive numbers for (these days) relatively low-budget projects. And while neither is close to the level of Once in terms of independence or limitation of resources, they are to some extent mainstream evolutions of the same concept.
Whether there’s a direct line to be drawn from the Once boomlet to the modern trend of musical-style, big-screen projects is impossible to say. But we can certainly hope that as the industry embraces these kinds of films, some indie performers like Hansard and Irglova will also be able to break through with simpler and more original films. Nothing has quite matched the surprise, charm, or impact of Once since, but with audiences arguably more willing than ever to embrace a movie that essentially comprises an album, perhaps we’ll see something of this ilk soon.