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"Once" Directed by: John Carney

Starring: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

Rated: R (adult language) Running Time: 86 minutes

Best Suited For: fans of the relevant folk/rock musical genre, musicians, songwriters and poets

Least Suited For: those who detest song

There's not much here really. Boy on Dublin street corner, strumming a battered guitar and singing for donations, meets immigrant girl, selling flowers to passersby. They chat. She happens to play the piano. A day later by chance they duet in a nearby music store and discover that they sound terrific together. (Not just cinematic pretense either- they really do sound terrific.)

But he's suffering from a lost love. She has a husband and a three-year-old daughter. That's the story of "Once," director John Carney's extraordinarily sweet, poetic and probable classic tale of two ships passing in the night.

In terms of cinematic accomplishment, "Once" is instantly forgettable: the lighting is poor, muddy and subdued. The sound quality is sadly insufficient. But for those who'll "get" this film, I suspect you'll barely notice these things. Shakespeare writing in crooked crayon is still Shakespeare. Picasso doodling on a napkin is still Picasso.

There's not much to this film, but it's better than "The Commitments." If you love films about music, you'll know what that means.

"Once" feels almost operatic. Almost, because there's precious little time between songs- powerful, wrenching tunes strung like pearls throughout this slice-of-life fable. Listen carefully; the words relate the hurt and pain and hope and angst of love lost and perhaps found again. The lighting, the editing- all that technical stuff- seems somehow superficial. Inconsequential.

That boy on the street corner, in real life, is Glen Hansard, lead singer for the Irish rock band The Frames. Real life Czech musician Marketa Irglova plays the passerby who's drawn to the voice she hears above the din of traffic. Their story is one of a shared passion for music and by happenstance the eventual relationship that may or may not develop.

"Once" is musician Hansard's cinematic calling card; the man (who I had not heard sing before this film) has an amazingly robust, chill-inducing voice. His range fluctuates between a CatStevens/Yusuf Islam-like low growl and those rich, fluttery high notes that most singers only dream about. Ireland has produced their fair share of folk and rock singers over the last 30 years- Van Morrison, Shane MacGowan, Bono, Sinead O'Connor- and Hansard can hold his own in that crowd. He may, in fact, stand out.

There's little cinematic tension in "Once." In one scene, the musician's father (and by now you must realize that the streetcrooner's first name is never spoken) is given a demo disk of his son's one-shot, 24-hour session at a local recording studio. The old man ponders in silence. We feel the slam coming, the generation gap, the tension mounting, but then the father sputters: "It's !#@$?& brilliant!" (Why is it that only the Irish can make obscenities sound poetic?) They both smile. So what comes after such !#@$?& brilliance? We never know.

Events transpire over a single week, a glimpse of ordinary people on the cutting edge of either success or failure.

Think of a novelist's first submission, an artist's first showing, a musician's first audition- these are the moments that "Once" captures in raw, pure essence. But this film isn't about success or failure, it's about the exhilaration of the attempt. Crossing over the line into happily-ever-after would ruin it. Thus, any of those suggestive Hollywood devices are cleverly omitted.

Should you care to ponder the film's title, allow me to save you some trouble. "Once" refers to a scripted romantic interlude between nameless boy and nameless girl, but both Hansard and Irglova thought the scene cheapened their character's friendship.

So director Carney removed it, and the title now coyly refers to something perhaps intangible. A perfect note? A perfect melody?

Perhaps a once perfect moment in time, shared by two people with a similar passion.

By the way (and I know because I came home from the theater, jumped online and ordered it) www.amazon.com offers a specially discounted, twoCD package; The "Once" soundtrack and "The Swell Season"- Hansard and Irglova performing together. In real life, the two are friends.

Since Amazon and I have yet to sign a contract (it always comes down to the minutia, doesn't it?) I have no invested interest in your purchase. Although I do think your eardrums will be thrilled.

Oh, and one last note from this hopeless, tone-deaf romantic: Anybody as amazed as me by Richard Linklater's film duet of "Before Sunrise (1995) and "Before Sunset" (2004) can only hope, a few years hence, that there might be a "Twice."