Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch writes lovely, fragile songs that soar and dip like swallows, presiding over a landscape of awkward sex and bruising break-ups, bus shelters and football pitches. Fans will be reassured to note that his directing debut covers much the same terrain: this sun-splashed Glasgow musical feels as much indebted to the work of Bill Forsyth as it does to Jacques Demy. Emily Browning stars as the anorexic Eve, who breaks out of hospital to chase her dream of forming a band. Along the way, she acquires a gawky guitarist (Olly Alexander) and a callow singer (Hannah Murray) and starts spinning gossamer little melodies out of her trips to the canal and the working men's club.

God knows, it isn't perfect. For a start, Murdoch is so busy mooning over Eve's dark bob and pink knees that he glosses the pressing subject of her mental health. The script, too, limps and stumbles when it really ought to move more sharply. All the same, I liked this a lot. God Help the Girl has a ramshackle charm and the naked sincerity of an earnest adolescent. It cuddles up; it wins you over. And when these clowns finally do get their group up and running – when the strings kick in and the song takes flight – the effect is rather moving, a humdrum little miracle; like Larkin's arrow shower, sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.