THE BOOKSHOP

Director
Isabel Coixet
(MY LIFE WITHOUT ME, ELEGY, LA VIDA SECRETA DE LAS PALABRAS/THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS)

Stars
Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, James Lance, Honor Kneafsey and Julie Christie

THE BOOKSHOP is the story of middle-aged widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer), who starts her own business by opening the first-ever book store in the small seaside town of Hardborough, England in 1959. As word of the new shop begins to circulate among the locals, Florence is faced with a number of challenges. None more so than one by the name of Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), who firmly and instantly disapproves of Florence’s plans to inhabit and convert a historic building into a bookshop, for she has ambitions to turn it into an art centre.

Emily Mortimer-TBS-0656
A mild-mannered and small-scale drama, THE BOOKSHOP ultimately satisfies and does boast an excellent finish, even though it could do without a few extra chapters that prolong its story along the way.

Spanish-born filmmaker Isabel Coixet’s award-winning screenplay, which is based on Penelope Fitzgerald‘s novel of the same name, is quite content to devote several of the film’s 113 minutes to many of its minor characters. The majority of this generously-allocated time is certainly time well spent. For instance, Florence‘s enthusiastic young employee, Christine (Honor Kneafey) and fellow book-lover who’s also her number one customer, local recluse Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), both forge a genuine rapport with the lead character and significantly contribute towards the central story, in their separate ways. Strangely though, this light drama only includes an equally (if not more) important character in shorter scenes that are mostly dispersed throughout the film. THE BOOKSHOP would certainly benefit from widening its open doors to its wonderful actress Patricia Clarkson’s portrayal of Violet Gamart and closing them to certain others instead. Even if it is the same way in the novel, this character feels under-developed here and the skills of Clarkson are certainly under-utilised.

Thankfully, the tender and tremendous lead performance from Emily Mortimer, an easily digestible central story and its aforementioned very fine finish do ensure that THE BOOKSHOP is worth borrowing someday.

3 stars

Clarkson Patricia_Lisbeth Salas14

Viewer Discretion
PG (mild themes)