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It's rare to see a movie with unnamed main characters, and even more rare for a movie to tell a convincing and heartbreaking love story between characters who are left unnamed. Once, a musical by definition but about as far as one could get from overblown productions like Hairspray or the Disney vehicle Enchanted, manages to do just that

The story in Once is simple, yet elegantly told through great uses of mood and music. "The guy" (Glen Hansard, leader of the Irish band The Frames) works at a vacuum repair shop run by his father, spends his free time playing songs for money on the street, hoping someday of having the good fortune to be able to record his music. Having recently been left by his girlfriend, the guy's songs generally have a melancholic, self-denigrating feel to them.

"The girl" (Markéta Irglová) is a Czech immigrant, working odd jobs during the day (such as selling flowers on the street), and spends her nights with her mother and daughter. Living in a poor apartment complex, the girl, whose husband still lives in the Czech Republic, must often take care of her child alone while other members of her complex come over to watch television.

Both leads have great chemistry (it's not surprising to know that they are dating in real life), and they make a conversation about the girl's broken vacuum seem elegant and romantic. Although their interactions are those of two people in love, however, the specter of the girl's absent husband (who she still has feelings for) hangs overhead, and the guy seems keenly aware of this, asking her about halfway through the movie if she loves her husband. She answers in Czech, which is frustratingly not translated, yet carries so much more weight, as the audience is left in the same state as the guy, unsure of if her answer was "Yes, I do" or "No, I no longer love him."

While the romance is central to the story, the music is both the glue that holds the movie together and the force which pushes everything forward. In perhaps the finest scene in the movie, the guy and the girl tentatively wander around a music shop, and the girl is enamored with an expensive grand piano. Urging her to play, the guy takes out his guitar and the two are immediately able to connect musically. The song plays out as a declaration of love, but it is not immediately clear whether the song is the guy reaching out to the girl, or whether he is pining away over his lost love.

Shortly afterwards, together with some fellow street musicians, the guy and the girl rent out a recording studio, where they record a demo of the songs that the guy has written, many of which are as intensely personal as "Falling Slowly," although the setting of a recording studio with other musicians gives the songs a more playful feeling than the "heart-laid-bare" feel of the two playing alone in harmony. And while the scenes whilst recording (and just following the completion) the demo constitute perhaps the movie's only points where it does fully capture the interest of the viewer, this is a minor complaint and one that is easily overcome with an extremely powerful ending.

Unfortunately, being a foreign film and sharing a premise with a movie already released previously in the same year (the underrated Music and Lyrics), Once's box-office appeal is most likely limited, which is a shame. More musically accomplished and endearing than the modern musical and more emotionally authentic than many modern romantic comedies, including beating out the aforementioned Music & Lyrics on both counts, Once is easily one of the best movies of 2007, and one that no one should miss.

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Copyright 2008 Benjamin Wood