Once is a musical but don’t let that put you off; it’s not like any musical you’ve seen before. Glen Hansard plays ‘Guy’ a vacuum cleaner repair man and would be singer songwriter, who makes a few extra Euros busking on the streets of Dublin. Still smarting from the break-up of a long term relationship, he saves his most caustic songs for night-time when there are not so many people about.

It’s here that he first encounters ‘Girl’ (Marketa Iglova) a Czechoslovakian immigrant who just happens to have a vacuum cleaner in need of repair. It also transpires that she is a gifted piano player and when the two adjourn to a local music shop to try out one of Guy’s songs, it quickly becomes apparent that they make a brilliant team.

Guy enlists Girl’s help in recording a demo tape with which he intends to launch a career in London and… well, that’s pretty much it, plot-wise. Sixty percent of the film is told through a series of songs, specially written for the film by Hansard and Iglova and it’s through them that this charming, quirky and totally original movie weaves its magic. And what songs! Haunting, poignant, gripping and everything else good songs ought to be, they really do illuminate the growing relationship between the two leads. Shot on a shoestring budget by former Frames keyboard player, John Carney, it’s easy to see why this movie has been cleaning up at independent film festivals around the world.

Effortlessly side-stepping all the potential clichés that have marred so many previous efforts in this field and resolutely refusing to give the conventional happy ending, Once is a film that deserves every bit of its success. If you don’t see it, you’ll only have yourself to blame.