Will they make a sequel called "Twice"?

Frames bassist John Carney teams up with bandmate (and bandleader) Glen Hansard to create "Once," a movie about a Dublin vagabond who spends his days and nights running back and forth between his fathers vacuum repair shop and the street corner where he plays sorrow-drenched songs about his ex-girlfriend, who moved to London.

Enter Marketa Irglov (called "The Girl" in the closing credits) who is tenaciously persistent in procuring information from Hansard (called "The Boy") about the source of his poetic inspiration and persuades him to fix her vacuum cleaner.

Insert adorable scenes of the two walking around Dublin with her dragging her broken vacuum cleaner around with her.

What ensues is an odd love story told partly through small bits of dialog and the Hansard's forlorn lyrics. The two never really form any type of romantic relationship, but stick closely together as they both work out their career and love troubles.

In reality, the story could be told in about 30 minutes, were it not for the meandering montages played under Hansard's songs, which are always played in full, beginning to end.

It's not a musical by any stretch, but the music dominates the scene. But the story is as unconventional as the music's presence in the film. Don't be fooled by the Americanized DVD cover, featuring Hansard and Irglov holding hands. Look on the soundtrack album cover and you'll see the original photograph has them standing side by side, not touching, but almost.

That's really the name of this whole story. The romance is confined entirely to fairly unreveiling dialog and overly reveiling (but ultimately symbolic and obscure) lyricism. The viewer starts to wonder if Hansard's songs are more about his ex-lover or this new girl who he barely even touches throughout the film.

What's amazing is the film is heartwrenchingly romantic, and the two share almost no physical contact, proving to American filmmakers that it can in fact be done without a sexual catharsis.

But for me, the real reason to watch the movie is to see the music develop from its form sung on street corners all the way up to a full-band studio recording. My wife's accused me more than once for liking a movie only because it had good music, but at least in this case there's not much I'm overlooking. The music is the main focus of the movie.

Peep the preview here

Also, just read an interview with the director in which the critic compared the film to Noel Coward's Brief Encounter and this is a great comparison. A love story without the stereotypical kiss scene or obligatory sex scene.