The Boys and Girl from County Clare, an understated, affecting Irish drama about a local music competition that reunites a broken family and forces the residents of a small town to come to terms with past indiscretions, is a modestly made film of good will, good music and good performances—even if it doesn’t linger long after its credits roll. It’s the kind of film that makes you smile in nearly every scene, is perfectly composed with picture-postcard beauty, well-acted with comic and romantic flair, and wants nothing more than to tickle your funny bone a bit and make your heart take pause. It’s not too deep or profound, but it certainly is handsome and watchable. It’s "small" in every sense of the word, which is a compliment here.

As lovely County Clare, Ireland sets the stage for their annual Ceili competition, bands from all around Europe converge for a piece of the action. For three brothers who have been playing music since they were children but have since become estranged and distanced in their separate lives, it’s time for a family reunion in which each pulls out the stops to prevent the others from winning. Two of them, at least, have carried on a petty rivalry for decades.

Once free-spirited Jimmy McMahon (Colm Meaney) in his youth left County Clare for Liverpool with dreams of becoming the next Beatles. He returns as a middle-aged, uptight band leader with cocky ambition to take the trophy—and take down elder brother John Joe (Bernard Hill) and his own local band, which includes beautiful young fiddle player Anne (Andrea Corr, of the Irish pop group The Corrs). Also in John Joe’s ensemble is Anne’s bitter, pianist mother Maisie (Charlotte Bradley, in an excellent dramatic performance), who harbors resentment for Jimmy, a former good-for-nothing who got her pregnant nearly two decades earlier and ran off without return. To further complicate matters, Anne falls into first love with Teddy (Shaun Evans), Jimmy’s flute player. Buried secrets, painful reconciliations and young love are the order of the day.

Jimmy is an inspired creation in the hands of the wonderful Colm Meaney, the workman-like Irish actor you call when you’re looking to illuminate a man of a certain age, afraid of insignificance, comically reaching for stature in his own humble world. Meaney did this memorably in last year’s character ensemble Intermission, and he does it again here. It’s fun to watch him wrangle his motley band with the acidic frustration of a man posturing to be important; to be taken seriously. But as fine as Meaney is, this is Andrea Corr’s show all the way. As she displayed in her cast out mistress cameo in Alan Parker’s Evita, Corr is a gorgeous presence—smart, direct and passionate.

There’s nothing overstated about the film, which contains plot elements rife with the potential for melodrama. When love blooms for Anne and Teddy, it’s not without the consequences of her once-spurned mother and the resentment of a daughter she’s trying to save from the same fate. The past, of course, may be years gone but is still completely within reach for Maisie, and it’s all dredged back up with Jimmy’s arrival. It’s a credit to the film that when father and daughter are reunited, there’s no schmaltzy pathos, no melodrama and no cheap sentiment. It’s refreshing in its matter-of-fact approach to how circumstances and personal failings lead to messy lives, and must be forgiven.

Director John Irvin wisely posits his music competition in the background of the domestic story. Indeed, we get involved with these characters—their unmistakable Irish charm, comic rivalry and tentative romance. When the musical competition finally arrives near the end of the picture, we’ve practically forgotten it was a part of the story—and Irvin shrewdly employs it as a catalyst for human change rather than a winner take all victory.

In the end, the music is a uniting force in community and family, between lovers old and new, which stands the test of time and personal crisis. A simple film, but not a simpleminded one.