BEFORE: February's almost over, but remember that my romance chain is going into overtime, it's going to extend into March, and that's OK. Love is too large and varied of a subject to be contained to just one month, especially the shortest month. Remember that there's young love, old love, past love, happy love, sad love, confusing love, hook-ups, make-ups and break-ups. Then there's the kind of love where you somehow end up fooling around with a duplicate of your spouse in the guest house of a weird resort, but I think that only happens in movies. Also this time around I've covered love found in schools, pizza places, banks, restaurants, coffee shops, retirement communities, hotel rooms, a zoo, an olive plantation, and lately the scenes have shifted to a number of homes and country estates, thanks to "The Seagull", "Hope Gap" and "Emma." Maybe today we're going book shopping?
I'm still seeing encouraging signs of life returning to New York, thanks to vaccination progress and warmer weather we can actually sit and have a meal in a restaurant again, plus there are plans in place to re-open concert venues and family entertainment centers, and there's talk now about movie theaters re-opening on March 5, with limited capacity. I just borrowed an Academy screener of "Wonder Woman 1984" from my boss, so I'm less concerned now about how I'm going to watch that one in March, and this means I can start thinking about how I'm going to connect to "Black Widow" in May - that may be my first film I see in theaters this year. Also I'm going to start applying for jobs at movie theaters, as I've been hoping there will be a wave of hiring that I can take advantage of. I worked in movie theaters 30 years ago, it's a relatively fun job - sure it's minimum wage but maybe I can just pick up some night and weekend shifts for a little extra spending cash while I figure out my next career move. If I can get hired, that is - my last bid to work at a comic book shop didn't pan out - but to be fair, there are a LOT of people looking for work right now.
Bill Nighy carries over from "Emma."
THE PLOT: England 1959 - in a small East town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop.
AFTER: I think the key to understanding this film is noting the year it takes place, which is 1959. I didn't realize this at first, because with some of those quaint little English towns, it can be difficult to determine the year at first in a movie setting - some of that architecture still standing today has been there since the Victorian era, and when dealing with older characters, maybe their fashion sense hasn't changed since the 1960's either. But when the bookstore manager started wondering about whether she should stock the book "Lolita", and I realized she had very little clue as to what the book "Lolita" was about, I started to think, "Hey, something's not right here." (Something's also not really right about "Lolita", and I think probably Woody Allen's a big fan of that book and the 1962 movie...)
This is a sort of sweet and also sort of sad little film, about Florence Green, a woman opening a bookstore in the UK coastal town of Hardborough (I wonder how far it is from Seaford...) - but what a scandal, a woman running a business! I guess people back then probably thought that women could only work in factories, while the men were at war - but during peacetime, they defaulted to the concept that a woman simply couldn't understand concepts like basic accounting, maintaining inventory and interacting with customers without swooning or getting "the vapors". Plus, genetically since she'd always be getting pregnant or being controlled by her hormones, how could she possibly have any time to properly run a business?
It could almost be easy to mistake this for a pandemic-based film, because there is one character, Mr. Brundish, who never leaves his house, but it turns out that this is not because he's afraid of getting sick, I think he just hates people. Which is understandable, especially for a British person. But I'm now questioning whether this film qualifies as a romance, it's more like an almost-romance, clearly there was something developing between this man, who the townsfolk assume to be a widower, and the central character, who for sure is a widow. They connect after he asks her to supply him with random books, and she wisely chooses Ray Bradbury novels and also wisely avoids sending him anything from the Bronte sisters. Their relationship might have really gone somewhere, if only British people were able to reveal their emotions to each other, without being embarrassed about, which, as evidenced in THREE films this week, they clearly do not.
Also, the town's against Ms. Green from the start, as the controlling Violet Gamart would much prefer that the "old house" which Ms. Green purchased be developed into some kind of arts center, and Violet doesn't let the simple fact that Ms. Green owns the house get in her way. Mrs. Gamart thinks that the fish store on the brink of closing would make a MUCH better location for a book store - because who doesn't love the lingering smell of old fish while they're buying books? And once the gossip around town gets going that the book store is moving, it very nearly becomes a fact - but Ms. Green persists and starts unpacking her boxes of books, anyway.
The store does enjoy some success, despite the fact that most of Hardborough's residents don't really care for reading, and Mr. Brundish is practically the only constant customer. Mrs. Gamart tries every possible avenue to get the bookstore closed down, even sponsoring a bill in Parliament that allows local councils to purchase historic buildings that have been unused for five years, and somehow the bookstore's location gets grandfathered in, despite being currently occupied by the bookshop. Here in the U.S., we've got some similar laws that cover nationally recognized historic properies, and also eminent domain laws that allow the government to seize private property with compensation, but I'll admit I'm nowhere near an expert on this topic.
The biggest problem here might be how telegraphed the ending is - you'd have to REALLY not be paying attention to be unable to figure out what's ultimately going to happen to the bookshop. And since this is 1959, the book store doesn't die a slow, agonizing death because everyone starts buying their books on Amazon...
Also starring Emily Mortimer (last seen in "Paris, Je t'Aime"), Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "Dogville"), Honor Kneafsey, James Lance (last seen in "Marie Antoinette"), Harvey Bennett, Reg Wilson, Michael Fitzgerald (last seen in "Love Actually"), Conor Smith, Jorge Suquet, Hunter Tremayne, Frances Barber (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Gary Piquer, Lucy Tillett, Lana O'Kell, Nigel O'Neill, Toby Gibson, Charlotte Vega, Mary O'Driscoll (last seen in "Brooklyn"), Karen Ardiff (ditto), Rachel Gadd, Richard Felix, Barry Barnes (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Nick Devlin and the voice of Julie Christie (last seen in "Nashville").
RATING: 6 out of 10 sea scouts uniforms
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