Penned as a 'modern-day musical', it tells the story of 'Guy', a busker and vacuum cleaner repair man, and 'Girl', a Czech immigrant, and their eventful week of discovery in Dublin. Through their mutual love of music, these two people come to know each other and think about their past loves in a way that will change their lives forever.
From the opening song, your heart is captured by the wolf-like and husky tones of Guy, played by Glen Hansard (of The Commitments and Irish band, The Frames) who plays on the streets of Dublin everyday. A chance encounter with Girl, played by Marketa Irglova (a professional musician) at night, sets the story in motion. On discovering that Girl is a talented piano player (through duetting the song ‘Falling Slowly’ that earned the film an Oscar) they embark on a journey of musical experimentation, and begin to grow closer to each other and face their own problems.
The songs are often played in their entirety, and in a real-world fashion, which gives us the impression that every song is spontaneous, and is one of the many factors that makes this film so enjoyable. Furthermore, many of the scenes were shot with long lens to make the actors more relaxed, which resulted in some of the dialogue being improvised. The opening scene for example, was shot without passers-by realising that a film was being made. The intimacy of the film makes it feel like you are looking into the private lives of two people who just happened meet on the street, and that sooner or later, someone will catch you spying on them from behind a bush. Of course that never happens, but the precious nature of this film makes you want to treasure it forever. Both actors, fairly new to the acting game (apart from Hansard’s supporting role in the film, The Commitments) are terrific and the subtlety of their acting makes it a delight to watch. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova provided the music and lyrics to the film, and you can really feel that everyone who contributed to the film put their heart and soul into it.
Not to give too much away, but Callum and I disagreed on the ending to this film. On viewing for yourself however, hopefully you can see for yourself that it ended in the right way, after all the tagline to this film reads: “How often do you find the right person?” The answers in the title.
Evangeline. X
