Negative Opinions On "Once"

You will find some laughable dissenting opinions here, buried under amazing 97% of approval.

The negative ones from RT (there were none on Metacritic):

http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/empor...f/reviews/Once

http://www.tonymedley.com/2007/Once.htm

http://filmcritic1963.typepad.com/ca...7/06/once.html

This is anecdotal, but a guy I know said that Once was boring and poorly made. This is the same guy who thought Saw IV was too intellectual for some folks, Meet the Spartans wasn't that bad, and that Batman Begins is a perfect movie.

Do you actually know that guy or do you have to visit him in his asylum based on purely medical reasons?

Saw 4 and intellectual in the same sentence is as absurd as expecting Saw 5 to take a sweep at next Oscars.

I actually know him, but we're not what you would call friends.

Did I mention he's also a Ron Paul supporter?

No you did not mention that. But that is only the icing on the cake in retrospect.
So goodspeed, Sir.

My mom said she didn't like it that much. It kind of surprised me, since, while her taste is more mainstream than mine, it's usually decent when it comes to smaller indie and foreign movies, and she's a fan of both musicals and love stories.

It might be that the music wasn't up her alley. If you're not sold on the music, that's about half the movie right there.

"You really liked that?" asked one of the local film PR reps. "Too much singing for me!"

And then you punched him, right, Russ? Please tell me you punched him...

I was going to say that I find anyone who isn't reduced to a puddle of tears by this movie suspect, but I don't feel I can implicate my mother-in-law like that. I think you're right, Dave - it probably was the music.

Her. I didn't. Might be detrimental to, like, the career and stuff.

I'll say it. DaveB's mom is suspect.

This film is perfect. It's special. It's always gonna be special, and it's never going to have the audience it deserves. That makes it even more special.

I've been showing this to every living creature I can find.

Let me preface this by saying that I thought Once was completely brilliant. I loved everything about it and have spent a lot of the last few days (I only saw it for the first time on Sunday) telling people to rent it, buy it, get the soundtrack, convert to the Once religion, etc. However, unlike so many on this site, I cannot say that the film reduced me to tears. I think the closest I came was either the scene where the Guy and the Girl first begin playing together in the piano shop or the scene where the Guy's father tells him that his music is brilliant. No tears, though. So, I apologize, but I must be "suspect". As I said in another thread, I must be one of this site's lone cold fish.

As for negative critiques of the film, a person like that's got no reason to live.

Brendon Kiley from THE STRANGER:

"Once

dir. John Carney

The major selling point for this unpleasant slog through a banal musical about honkies in love is its star. Glen Hansard, formerly of Irish band the Frames, is supposed to be some kind of balladeer heartthrob in real life, but he seems like a twit.

Hansard’s other movie credit is the guitar player in The Commitments. It was, at least according to Wikipedia, “a role he subsequently regretted, believing it distracted from his music career.” Really? Like, you just couldn’t wriggle free from those 13 minutes of C-level fame circa 1991? Twit.

Anyway, the movie: Irish twit busks the streets of Dublin and works at his father’s vacuum-repair shop. Czech gal (Markéta Irglová, also of the Frames) pursues Irish boy. Their love is inevitable—a cheating girlfriend broke his heart; an indifferent babydaddy broke hers—and unconsummated. She fawns over his music and they put together a band and make a record that everyone, from the jaded studio manager to Irish boy’s father, thinks is cool.

The problem is the awful fucking music, and, this being a musical, the awful fucking music sinks the ship. (The scene with Irglová singing while listening to headphones, walking down a Dublin street in her pajamas late at night, isn’t bad. But that’s only enough material for a music video.) Hansard’s songs are all of the genus “mewling heartbreak.” They begin with a plaintive honky honk and build to a strained honky howl—all of them repetitive, lazy, and cloying. Once isn’t half bad when Hansard shuts the hell up and lets someone else get an emotion in edgewise. But mostly, it’s barf."

Although it is a small and somewhat slight movie, I think you can, and should, enjoy Once even if you're not that big a fan of the music. The movie is about how relationships bring music into our lives, and the film illustrates that beautifully. The songs themselves provide somewhat of an emotional blueprint, but understanding or appreciating them is not necessary to "get" the story. The music they play could be terrible to everyone but them and it would still work... as long as the performances and emotions were that pure, and the way the relationship was weaved around it was done as skillfully.

I guess he was expecting Creed: The Musical.

I challenge you to do a fan-edit of this movie and replace all of that great Hansard/Irglova music with Diane Warren schmaltz (or an overblown Creed soundtrack, as Martin suggested). The songs and performances are as much a part of the movie as the songs and performances are in any musical. Yeah, you'd still "get" Fiddler on the Roof without understanding or appreciating the songs, but if you didn't, you certainly wouldn't like it as a whole.

It's certainly a big part of it. But I believe the performances, the little details, the way the relationship played out as they grew together musically were all aspects of the film that were strong regardless of how good the music was. I wasn't trying to downplay the importance of the tunes as much say the other elements were enough, I think, to recommend the movie to somebody who wasn't into that type of music.

There's a difference between "this is not my kind of music" and "those songs are not good." Unfortunately, most people go freely from one to the other.

The great stain of my life is that my significant other hates musicals. This includes Once. I was heartbroken when she refused to get into it.

Those who don't like Once probably are the type of people who hate sex.

That's a clear distinction, and I wasn't trying to blur the line. But in every instance I can still see liking Once as a portrait of two people connecting emotionally and musically. Again, based on the strength of the other elements, and realizing it wouldn't be as good or enjoyable without such wonderful accompaniment.

I was agreeing with you. If someone listens exclusively to heavy metal or a specific breed of techno or whatever, that person can still enjoy Once as long as he/she can say "this music isn't my cup of tea, but it is none the lesser for that fact."

I wouldn't put much stock in The Stranger. If anything the music wasn't hip enough for them or perhaps the reviewer went in with a pre-existing hate-on for Hansard or The Frames or some such rot. The fact is that most of their writers are novelist or journalist manques who have to come to terms with the fact that they are writers and reviewers for an alternative weekly. In their bitterness they choose to bludgeon those who actually create by using their over-priced education as a half-assed cudgel.

Loved the music. That first song he sings after the credits is fucking incredible, and most of them after that are right up there. But the unrequited love angle, the end, it didn't blow my mind. It was good and I really enjoyed it but I wasn't in love with the movie, it didn't do anything particularly exceptional to me, music aside. But I do love the filmmaking style.

Here's as critical as I can get: I liked the film a lot, it's very sweet and etc. etc. But I liked the music better than the movie, though - much like Hustle and Flow - the songs play better in context of the film (though they're all on my iPhone, don't get me wrong). The filmmaking is simplistic in a way that errs close to amateurishly not good at times. The music carries the film. And that's fine. It's totally beautiful and all that. I'm not denying it in any way shape or form. I kinda love it. But I don't think it's a great film qua film.

My girlfriend hates musicals. First time we met, she gave me a stare when I mentioned my love of Jesus Christ Superstar and Little Shop of Horrors that I'm probably never going to get again unless I rape her pets and parents. Needless to say, I had to do some serious pleading to get her to sit down for this.

She cried through the last third of the film (from The Girl breaking down during The Hill onward), cried during the Oscar performance, and refuses to listen to the soundtrack on the basis that "I don't think I could take that driving to class in the morning."

It helps that she's a major fan of acoustic, folksy music. But she also told me it doesn't fit her definition of musical, either.

Moral is, the musical excuse doesn't hold water. Cold-hearted bitch tends to be the main reason for people flat out hating it.

Disclaimer: I LOVE both the flick and the music.


In the beginning of the film (particularly the meeting between the 2 leads) I was concerned about the "I'll read my line and then you'll read your line" feel that I was getting from the dialog/editing. I was seriously afraid it was going to come off like an amateurish indie talkie (I'm looking at you Edward Burns, director) where the performances and pacing really hinder my enjoyment. The piano shop scene blew all those expectations away and I was fully invested and constantly moved from there on out.

The music's strength is the film's strength.

I watched this again last night. It's been a while since the previous time I saw it and in that time I managed to see Swell Season in concert. (Outside, no less. It was lovely.)

The movie is awesome and I think the amateurish appearance gives a sense that it's real. It's like a documentary and much like the "public schools" season of The Wire I tend to forget I'm watching people act. I like that. If you haven't seen this yet, please do.