Once

Grade: A-

Q: How did a charming story about a Dublin street musician who collaborates with a young Czech woman fill me with feelings of stomach-churning dread?

A: My parents saw the movie two days before me and, without actually divulging the ending, implied that it was surprising and that they just had to talk with me about it after I saw the film.

Once is a modern day urban fairy tale that also happens to be a musical, and it avoids the awkward "break into song for no reason" trappings of most musicals by setting the songs in practical locations like piano stores and recording studios. Writer/director John Carney fills the low-budget production with stuttering hand-held camera shots, and he apparently ran into so much money trouble that he couldn't afford to give his characters names. Glen Hansard of the band The Frames plays "Guy" and stoic teen phenomenon Marketa Irglova from the Czech Republic plays "Girl."

Guy falls in love with Girl, but it's not exactly clear how wildly Girl's hormones are raging. The future of their relationship is entirely uncertain, but for their week-long relationship we're privy to their jam sessions, their increasingly relaxed and honest repartee and their foray into a recording studio.

Not exactly the makings of a thriller, eh? Well I felt perfectly relaxed and charmed for the first half, but as the conclusion neared I couldn't help remembering my parents' disclaimer and I thought that disaster loomed every time Guy or Girl so much as sat on a toilet. I had told my partner, Drew, that there might be a big surprise in store for us, and he simulated his bouts of anxious speculation by biting down on his fist every time the tuneful couple crossed a busy street or hopped on a motorcycle. Would they wind up as road kill before they scored a record contract? Would one of them end up being a secret IRA operative, hiding massive amounts of explosives in Guy's guitar case or the cute little vacuum cleaner that Girl wants to get fixed?

Needless to say nothing apocalyptic comes to pass, but my parents were right on the money in the sense that the final three minutes are ambiguous enough to inspire at least two or three different theories about the fate of the star-crossed (but not actually lovers in the biblical sense) folkies.