Once Upon a Time in Cinema (DVD Review)
Director
David GleesonRelease Date(s)
2026 (September 1, 2026)Studio(s)
Wide Eye Films/Egoli Tossell Pictures/Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland/UMedia Production Services/Break Out Pictures (Kino Lorber)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: D
Review
An Irish-Belgian co-production, Once Upon a Time in a Cinema (2026) is a great idea for a movie: unfolding almost in real-time, beleaguered Limerick cinema owner Earl Clancy (Colin Morgan, of Belfast) struggles to keep it together during a disaster-plagued first-run showing of the Richard Gere Breathless (1983).
It’s a sincerely-made, well-intentioned, and reasonably entertaining rallying cry for the communal experience of movie theater-going, but it’s also so incident-filled the plot leaves little room for much beyond superficial characterizations, and its story is predictable and sometimes pat. Still, it’s not a bad way to spend 90 minutes.
Just before showtime, everything seems to be going wrong. Earl’s younger brother Gerald (Calam Lynch) is pressuring him to sell the cinema to a local politician so that they can restart their lives by opening a 24-hour petrol station just outside of town. Earl’s young adult daughter, Kate (Clara Crichton) is angry that her father spends so much time at the theater; the fire marshal is demanding upgrades he can’t afford; someone has stolen cash from the box office; the projectionist is drunk, a pipe bursts in the lobby, the electricity and projectors are on the blink; and a rat is loose in the auditorium. What else can go wrong?
Limerick-born writer-director David Gleeson (The Front Line, Tolkien) came from a family of cinema-owners; his father’s 78-year career running one holds the record in Ireland. As such, there’s no doubt Once Upon a Time in a Cinema is heartfelt—the problems are its predictability and a too-frantic pace that doesn’t allow its audience to get to know any of its characters very well. The result is a movie that entertains adequately enough, but which also falls way short of the magic of, say, a Cinema Paradiso or a Local Hero, lacking the richness of those films.
The single-screen Royal Cinema, used for filming, had been closed as a cinema since 1985 (last movie shown there: Police Academy 2), but has a storied history. Its early years had appearances by everyone from Oscar Wilde to P.T. Barnum and later, as a late-night music venue, it hosted the Limerick-based group The Cranberries, reportedly playing to an audience of 35 people.
As a writer, director Gleeson throws in everything but the kitchen sink: sibling rivalry and resentments, tension-filled father-daughter relationships, the realities of commerce vs. the ethereal communal experience of movie-watching, workers who become family. A photograph of Earl’s father looms large in the projection booth, and comes to his rescue in one scene. The movie itself has added scratches and cues noting the reel changes, reminding those watching Once Upon a Time... that they are, in a sense, part of the story in the same manner as The NeverEnding Story. Attempts to elicit an emotional response to the film’s sentimental moments don’t really work, but one can’t fault Gleeson for trying everything he can think of.
Though set in the mid-1980s, I’m not convinced the film is entirely accurate in some of its particulars. It presupposes that the VHS boom is killing the theatrical market, and while that might have been true for single-screen houses in Ireland, especially this one offering but a single 8:00pm show per night, it didn’t really impact cinemas quite in the manner the movie suggests. Toward the end, Earl comes up with a plan to twin his beloved cinema, as if this was an unprecedented innovation, but multi-screen cinemas had been around for at least 25 years before the mid-1980s. I can’t claim to have seen movies in Irish theaters, but during the mid-1980s I did seen lots of movies in multi-screen theaters in England and Scotland with continuous performances, and they weren’t much different from American ones.
One amusing note: Both Colin Morgan and Calam Lynch were born after the period in which the film is set. Were the mid-1980s really that long ago?
Kino’s Region 1 DVD of Once Upon a Time in a Cinema presents the film in 1.85:1 widescreen with 16:9 enhancement. Despite its now-limited resolution, the image looked surprisingly good projected onto my 12-foot-wide screen, though it’s too bad Kino didn’t opt to release this on Blu-ray as well. Audio is offered in both Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 stereo, and is up to contemporary standards. Optional English subtitles are offered for those who find Irish brogues impenetrable. The lone extra is a trailer.
Inoffensive, reasonably diverting if not quite as charming as it aims to be, Once Upon a Time in a Cinema is worth a look.
- Stuart Galbraith IV