David Gleeson’s Once Upon A Time At A Cinema is a handwritten love letter not only to the cinema, but to the act of moviegoing itself.
Gleeson both directs and pens the script, which is described as “semi-autobiographical.” His parents owned and operated a cinema during his childhood, steeped in all things celluloid. That lived-in familiarity bleeds into the character of Earl, the owner of a struggling single-screen theater facing mounting repair costs and the encroaching rise of home video.
On the surface, the film follows a man — a business owner, father, and brother — wrestling with whether to sell the cinema he loves for the sake of those around him. But beneath that, it operates as a restrained character study, concerned less with plot mechanics than with emotional stasis.
The script’s central flaw is that, much like its protagonist, it withholds. It spends the majority of its runtime circling Earl’s inner life rather than penetrating it. When glimpses of vulnerability finally surface, they arrive briefly before retreating again. The result is a paradox: the characters are clearly conceived with depth, yet the film often renders them emotionally distant. There is a persistent sense that something richer lies beneath the surface — a tension that creates intrigue, but also frustration.
Gleeson offers isolated, beautifully observed reflections on the power of cinema. Earl recalls seeing Bullitt for the first time, torn between staying for another screening or leaving to meet his future ex-wife. A theater employee recounts her sister’s obsession with Grease, describing how many times she returned to see it. These moments feel personal and alive, rooted in experience rather than sentimentality. Yet they are spaced too sparsely, separated by connective material that moves the narrative forward without deepening it — wires linking stronger emotional pillars.
Where the script hesitates, the direction does not. Gleeson approaches the material with visual steadiness, maintaining tonal consistency even when the emotional undercurrents fluctuate. His framing is deliberate and often striking. The cinematography favors wide, loose compositions that allow space to breathe within the frame, creating a subtle visual metaphor for the emotional distance between characters.
When Earl changes the film reels himself, the shots become more precise, more centered. In these moments, the cinema transforms into a sanctuary — a fortress of solitude. It is here that Colin Morgan delivers his strongest work. His performance mirrors the film’s restraint: dry, measured, occasionally opaque, yet capable of sudden flashes of warmth that pierce through the reserve.
Perrine Virgile’s score is the film’s most unguarded element. Classical and assured, it flows freely where the script tightens. Each musical cue lands with clarity, reinforcing the emotional beats the dialogue sometimes resists articulating.
By the time the credits roll, the film gestures toward a clearer articulation of its themes — legacy, preservation, the fear of letting go — but it never fully commits to excavating them. What remains is a work shaped by deep affection for cinema, one that understands its rituals and sanctity intimately, even if it struggles to dramatize the emotional cost of losing them.
Gleeson’s love for cinema radiates unmistakably. What the film lacks in emotional excavation, it compensates for in sincerity. It may hold itself back, but its devotion is never in question.