Tom, a solitary man in his early twenties lives with his father in Galway. Father is an amateur musician and composes songs that he sings and plays on the guitar. Tom shares his father's avocation and dreams of singing in the local pub but he has serious stage fright issues. Father supports and helps him at every step, but we suspect his relation with Tom is somewhat suffocating and has to do with Tom having no friends.
Forced by circumstances, Tom decides to look up his mother in Dublin (she left when he was little); the only clue to Mother's whereabouts is a cryptic message she left on a photograph's flip side.
Tom's trip starts inauspiciously, marked with strange, darkly comic encounters. Then Tom meets Jess, a dazzling young woman that is, in sense, Tom's opposite: extroverted, resourceful, resolute. What follows is a story that alternates seamlessly between realism and fairy tale.
I found this movie difficult to dislike. Acting has some rough edges, there are perhaps too many songs (reminiscent of Bob Dylan) and there are echoes of Hollywood here and there but the final result is an enjoyable, unpretentious movie.
