The Bookshop is an adaptation of a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, which I will never read, and the actual book is featured prominently at the end of the movie. It stars Emily Mortimer, who plays Florence, the owner of the shop, and a phenomenal cast of actors including Bill Nighy, who plays Brundish, and Patricia Clarkson, who plays Violet Gamart, the unofficial mayor of the town. It is about a widow who opens a bookshop in a small seaside town much to the consternation of the grand dame in charge. If you love the cast, watch them in anything else. This movie isn’t even worth watching in passing for free.
I was charmed by the preview for The Bookshop, but the movie does not add much more than scenery and long pauses. I hope that the book isn’t as bad as the movie. There is a narrator who unevenly fills in the holes left in the movie, which tells rather than shows and never tells enough. The bookshop ends up being a metaphorical battleground for the soul of the town. Florence is supposed to be principled and right because we love books, and she has pure motives. Florence unwittingly squares off against Violet, who is used to getting her way through insinuated threats, money and influence. Violet is supposed to be a villain because the movie gives us glimpses of her Little House on the Prairie’s Nelly tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. It is a David and Goliath story, but the actual conflict seems ridiculous. Violet could have done nothing, and that business would have failed anyway.
Who buys 250 copies of the same book?!? Unless you are a missionary, and you are planning on flinging a Bible at any person that you come across regardless of whether or not the person already has one, no one would do such thing! I went to college, and some of my courses had big classes. The college bookstore was large, and it still ran out of books. I’m fairly sure that they never ordered 250 of anything. Florence’s whole store probably had 250 books! Was her bed made out of books? Did she eat them? You need a bigger truck to bring them! Florence is an idiot. I also don’t understand how the movie can simultaneously set her up as if she is a well-known fixture of the town beloved by children and the wealthy hermit, but she acts like she is brand new and barely seems to know these shady people. The Bookshop creates contrived characters, not credible three-dimensional people.
I actually predicted the identity of the narrator and the end of the movie fairly quickly, and you can too if you use the principle of Chekov’s Gun to guide you. Why is The Olde House so important to such different people and simultaneously left vacant for seven years? Who knows! Anyone who has ever worked in a bookstore can tell you that it rarely if ever consists of hours of getting high off your own supply. Other than Florence, I think that the movie only showed four people in it-one was a child, another was an enemy, another was a browser and another was a mole.
There is a character in The Bookshop who is so obviously on the side of the villain that he may as well have been twirling his mustache instead of constantly running his hands through his mop of hair. Everyone eyes him suspiciously, but he still manages to cozy up to Florence long enough for the plot to unfold as predestined. The most interesting thing about him was the fact that he wasn’t gay and had a girlfriend whom we see for a few minutes. I hope that his character was more interesting in the book because he was severely two dimensional and barely seemed to have a life outside of doing the bidding of the grand dame. Again Florence is an idiot who apparently does not have periphery vision because she trusts him with her precious shop.
Momentarily I hoped that at least The Bookshop was really a contrived late in life romance between Florence and Brundish, which it wasn’t, but if it was, it would have been absurd even if it would have redeemed the movie to some degree. He went from actively avoiding her to falling for each other after two interactions: the most awkward tea ever when your guest serves you (damn, gender roles, he can’t even hire someone for that) and an encounter by the ocean that leads to tentative hand and face brushing. This movie was set in 1959, not 1859, and while I love old-fashioned, restrained courtships, they were both in serious relationships at one point. I would have accepted the romance based on their mutual love of books and correspondence.
The Bookshop’s strongest (and only) directorial choice was to depict the letters as if Brundish was seated across from Florence at a table filled with books. It was the most enjoyable aspect of the movie and had the most life in the film. Their actual exchanges paled in comparison, but it does make sense on some level that a couple of bibliophiles would be more appealing on the page than in person. Otherwise none of the characters seem like real people who have real interactions as opposed to a series of pronouncements disguised poorly as dialogue. Brundish implies that Violet made him become a hermit, and there is a huge rivalry between the two, but again, the movie never shows us what that means. It takes great pains to show Brundish readying for his standoff, and it is mildly instructive to compare and contrast their properties as a reflection of their personalities, but it seems like a big build up to get to the resolution for his character. I call those scenes, “Walking with purpose to my destiny.”
The end of The Bookshop reveals the narrator’s identity, and we’re supposed to feel as if Florence won because she captured young minds and sowed seeds that erupted into future bookstores, but um, we’re leaping over some serious criminality to get there. You took the wrong lessons from Ray Bradbury. If I can’t have you, no one will! What is happening?!? Hi, Carrie without the powers.
The Bookshop is more interested in getting to the end than the journey, which is the opposite intended effect of books. The entire movie is a snooze fest, but it may inspire you to seek out the countryside of Portaferry, Ireland or Barcelona, Spain, which is where the movie was shot, or admire the 1950s elegant fashions and buy a scarf. I would urge you not to waste any time watching this movie.