Once

Watching "Once" is like sitting in on a jam session. It's mellow and relaxed. It doesn't amount to much, but it's pleasant enough.

The director has said that he set out to make a movie so simple that the story could be summarized on the back of a postage stamp, and he's succeeded. An Irish busker meets a Czech émigré, and both flit around the edges of falling for each other while recording a demo album of the busker's music. Both are struggling with the loves in their lives, he with a girlfriend in London, she with her estranged husband and father to her little girl. The resolution of their stories, what resolution there is, felt right and realistic. This isn't a fairy tale, but neither is it Shakespearean tragedy. Life simply goes on.

The film's biggest asset is its music, and indeed most of the songs in the film we see performed in their entirety. The movie isn't exactly a musical in the strictest sense of the word, since characters don't spontaneously burst into choreographed musical numbers, but like the best musicals, the songs in "Once" illuminate the characters and play an integral role in the storytelling.

A low-key little gem of a movie.

Grade: A