Last weekend, Husband and I got a babysitter and went to see a movie. The babysitter is a fairly regular thing, but the movie was momentous. We like to put Minor to bed before we leave for the evening, because we want the babysitter to COME BACK AGAIN, PLEASE, so we rarely get out of the house before 7:00 p.m. All the local movies seem to start at 7:00 or 9:00, making them too early or too late for us. But the local art house has a 7:30 show on Sunday nights, so even though it wasn’t on our top ten list, we went to see Once.

I was not sorry. Once is the story of an Irish musician who meets a Czech musician in Dublin. They collaborate on a few songs, and they may or may not fall in love. The songs are performed, “Dogma”-like, at length, in mostly real time, and only with instruments that are also present on-screen. There is one clever scene with a Discman, another with some music editing software and another scene in a recording studio that give plenty of excuses for more lush orchestration, but the scenes of the hero playing alone on the street, or the lovers playing guitar and piano together in a music store, were my favorites anyway.

The leading man, Glen Hansard of The Frames, an Irish group, is a singer/songwriter who reminds me a bit of Ron Sexmith, Rufus Wainwright, Mike Viola, Elvis Costello in his mellower songs — in short, all my favorites. (He was also in The Commitments.) His voice and Marketa Irglova’s blend together beautifully. So many solo artists take advantage of technology these days to sing their own backup, which I think is a real loss. Harmony sounds so much better with two interesting, complementary voices.

The story was a very simple one, but throughout the movie I kept waiting for the big Hollywood plot twist that would transform it into something formulaic. She goes to the convenience store; surely she’s going to be attacked! He meets her family; OK, here comes the big misunderstanding that could easily be solved with a simple phone conversation! He goes to the airport; this must be the scene where he rushes off the plane and into her arms at the last minute. Over and over, the movie failed to live down to my expectations.

Since the two main characters are impoverished musicians, they live in squalor that brought to mind my Peace Corps days: cooking on a gas ring, washing clothes by hand, etc. I spent an hour being terribly sorry for them, then felt a flash of nostalgia and, well, envy. Those were fun times, even if I slept in a never-washed sleeping bag for three years. And then there was a sudden flare-up of revulsion for our comfortable suburban lifestyle. It was short-lived; I haven’t been prosperous long enough to feel all American Beauty about it. But for the first time I got a little taste of that Cheever-esque upper-middle-class ennui.

Anyway, the soundtrack is fantastic and is under $10 on iTunes. Minor has been falling asleep to it for the last two nights. You won’t regret it.