Once

John Carney built the script around songs Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová had given him. Cillian Murphy was to take the male lead and produce; he reportedly disliked acting opposite the 17 year old Irglová, not an actress, and believed he could not manage the octave leaps in Hansard’s songs. When he pulled out, the other producers took their money with him. The shoot ran 17 days, in natural light, in friends’ houses; the party scene is Hansard’s flat and friends. Dublin street work was done without permits on a long lens, so many passers by never realised a film was being made, and it relaxed the non professional actors. The girl’s unsubtitled Czech line was improvised; Hansard, like the man he plays, did not know what she had said. Falling Slowly won Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards. Its eligibility was challenged, since versions were already on two 2006 albums, but the music committee cleared it. When the orchestra cut Irglová off, Jon Stewart brought her back after the commercial break. A good fit if you are here to watch songs get finished and do not mind a camera that hangs back. Not for anyone who wants the relationship resolved out loud; the unrequited ending was one part of the script that never changed.