Note: This installment is divided into two parts. The first is a synopsis, pretty much. The second part consists of my personal opinion about the movie.
A guy and a girl met on the street of Paris, fell in love, and then lived happily ever after. How's that for a story! Well, Once is a story about a girl and a guy, alright. And they did fall in love with each other, sort of. And maybe they really lived happily ever after anyway, just not together. And the city is Dublin, not Paris. (God knows why people dub that particular place "the city of love". Why not Pondicherry, or Perth, or Portsmouth?)
So, a struggling singer-songwriter was out busking one evening, singing quite emotionally at the top of his lungs, when a girl came up to him and commended his performance. (These two shall remain nameless to the end.) The praise was taken rather sarcastically though, since the girl only gave her 10 cents. The girl retorted that if he's only into making money, he should've got a job in a shop or something. The guy said that he did have a job repairing vacuum cleaners. As chance would have it, the girl had a broken vacuum at home. She cheerily promised to come by again the next day with her vacuum in tow so that he could fix it up for her.
This initial exchange led to a friendship. The guy eventually found out that the girl was a musician (although she didn't identify herself as one, merely stating that she knew "a little" about music), playing the piano. And the girl found out that the guy's songs were inspired by an ex-girlfriend, who had cheated on him with another man and was living in London at present. Noticing that he hadn't been over her, the girl suggested that he followed her to London. She also pointed out that he should've tried to push his music through a record company or something, considering how good it was.
Although reluctant at first, the guy finally decided to go to London to pursue both goals--winning his girlfriend back and making a music career--but not before he made a proper demo tape. With the help of the girl and three other street musicians, he got to a recording studio and played his songs for taping, even winning the support of the previously apathetic studio engineer.
All through the movie, you can see how the two main characters' feelings for each other developed. One particular scene in this respect is when the guy asked the girl how to say "Do you love him?" in Czech, "him" being her husband back home in her old country. (Surprise, surprise, the girl's got a husband. Yes, she had a kid, but the audience--well, I, anyway--were led to believe that she was unmarried.) After answering, the girl said another thing in Czech but refused to translate it for him. What she said was, "It is you I love."
However, the feelings they had for each other didn't materialize into something more. After they finished recording, the guy invited the girl to hang out with him, since he's going to London the next day. She refused and said that it would only end up in a "hanky-panky", which would be worthless, at any rate. She also revealed that his husband's coming to Ireland, and that they're going to try to work things out. Even though she promised to come over to his place that evening, she stood him up in the end. He failed to meet her one last time prior to his departure, and there's no tearful reunion in the airport, either.
The penultimate scenes of the movie showed the guy going away to catch his flight with wistful smile on his face, while a piano--a gift from him--was delivered to the girl's home, received with much appreciation on her part.
I can't say that I'm surprised or disappointed with the movie's somewhat "unresolved" ending, though. A defining moment in the studio room ensured that that's how the movie's going to end. Thank goodness for that, or else it's going to be just your average romantic flick instead of the truly memorable movie that it is.
-----Part 2-----
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