A real Irish charmer

The protagonists are Glen Hansard's singer songwriter, who makes a living fixing vacuum cleaners in his father's Dublin repair shop and sings for money on the streets by night, and Marketa Irglova as the Czech immigrant who plays the piano and looks after her daughter between odd jobs.

The pair meet on the streets, get to know each other and decide to make a demo together with a posse of musicians they have also discovered on the streets. Even the cynical and doubting producer agrees that it works well. But the singer's attempt to have a romance with the girl looks at best like being an on-off affair.

Such a simple story may sound like a cinematic cliché but the fact that it traces much of what actually happened between the two actors renders it rather more than mere wishful fiction. And the other fact, that Bob Dylan has asked Hansard's group, The Frames, to appear as a supporting act on his forthcoming tour, shows how effective Once is in purely musical terms.

Hansard's folk-based songs are not always wonderful, but he has an intensity of expression that shines through most of them. You leave the cinema humming - which is exactly what you should do when a musical, even one as unspectacular as this, hits home.

The relationship, too, seems touchingly true - the performances more credible for their lack of actorly subtlety. Shows what you can do when you've a decent story to tell.

Once
Cert: 15