"Once" is that rare film that understands how love actually works in the real world - not in the manufactured universe of Hollywood romance, but in the quiet spaces between glances and guitar strings. Set against the gray-washed streets of Dublin, it follows two musicians who are never named - they're simply Guy (Glen Hansard) and Girl (Marketa Irglova). This choice feels right; their story is universal enough to belong to anyone.

What strikes me most about John Carney's film is its refusal to bend to romantic convention. Here is a love story that breathes naturally, like a folk song that's been waiting to be discovered rather than composed. The Guy busks on Dublin streets, pouring his heartache into borrowed melodies. The Girl, a Czech immigrant with her own wounds, recognizes something in his music that speaks to her soul. Their connection isn't built on meet-cute moments or contrived conflict, but on the authentic language of musicianship.

I first encountered "Falling Slowly," the film's signature song, years before seeing the movie, but watching it in context is like finally understanding the meaning of a poem you've long had memorized. The music in "Once" isn't deployed as emotional manipulation - as it so often is in modern musicals - but emerges organically from the characters' lives, as natural as conversation.

Hansard and Irglova aren't actors playing musicians; they're musicians being themselves, and this authenticity bleeds through every frame. When they perform, you're not watching a performance - you're witnessing an emotional excavation. Their characters' pain, hope, and longing are laid bare through lyrics and melody rather than dialogue.

The ending refuses the easy satisfaction of romantic resolution. Guy leaves for London, Girl reunites with her husband, and we're left with the bittersweet understanding that some loves are meant to transform us rather than possess us. It's the kind of ending that feels true to life - not happy, not tragic, but somewhere in that complex middle ground where most of our stories actually live.

"Once" reminds us that the most powerful love stories aren't always about endings, but about moments - those brief intersections of lives that leave us forever changed. It's a film that lingers in your memory like a half-remembered song, its melody haunting you long after the last note has faded.

Four stars.