Review of The Bookshop (2017) by Clive H — 11 Jun 2018

In 1959, Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) buys the dilapidated 'Old House' in the small coastal town of Hardborough, East Anglia, takes over the unsold stock of a business in London that has closed, and opens a bookshop.

Reading is not a past-time that's widely popular in Hardborough. The townsfolk are convinced that the bookshop of kind-hearted Mrs Green, widowed during World War II, will fail - not for economic reasons or lack of readers but because the formidable, ruthless and vindictive Mrs Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), self-appointed patroness of all public activities in the town, wants 'Old House' to be an Arts and Cultural Centre.

Florence does have supporters. There's young Christine (Honor Kneafsey), worldly beyond her years, who helps out after school; and Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), the local squire, a voracious reader and Florence's best customer.

The film moves at a leisurely pace. A pace that allows us time to appreciate whatever is on the screen, be it conflict, embarrassment, unresolved tension or moments of reflection. A pace that allows time for the cinematographer (Jean-Claude Larrieu) to linger on water, trees, fields and tall grass wavering in the wind.

Isabel Coixet, the director, wrote the screenplay which she based on a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. The movie - filmed in County Down, Northern Ireland and Barcelona, Spain - won three of Spain's Goya Awards (best film; best director; best adapted screenplay) earlier this year.

The cast performs magnificently. Florence: naïve, courageous, and trusting; Christine: precocious and determined; Edmund: reclusive and supportive; Violet: persuasive, highly motivated, and effective.

This painfully tender movie - rigorously unsentimental - wormed its way into my affections. It's a film that touches the emotions with an ending that's bitter-sweet.