Mark Reviews Movies: THE BOOKSHOP

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 30, 2018

Just about every character in The Bookshop is an expert at repressing his or her emotions. Few say what they really think, and when some kind of true opinion or feeling comes out, it's always coated with an air of politeness. That's the world of this small, English village in the late 1950s, where everybody knows everyone else's business—or, at least, the "official" gossip on the subject—and it's best to keep one's head down, lest all of those rumors and more are confirmed. There's a major exception in one pivotal scene, in which one character lets out with a string of rather indelicate opinions, and it's telling that the end result is the character's death shortly after.

This is the reality of the world, and it presents a significant challenge for writer/director Isabel Coixet, adapting Penelope Fitzgerald's novel of the same name. How does a filmmaker communicate the deepest feelings and genuine thoughts of characters who talk and behave as if they have neither?

Coixet never quite gets past that obstacle, and the consequence is a staid drama that seems to have repressed its own thoughts and feelings. The movie is filled with the voice of a narrator, who, we learn in the final minute of the story, was a direct observer of and occasional participant in the happenings in Hardborough—an appropriate name for a place where all of the most notable citizens seems to be wearing a shell of civility. The narrator, though, might as well be some omniscient, objective voice, given that the voice-over's primary job is tell us what characters are thinking and feeling at any particular moment. Even that voice is distant and uncaring, even though, as we eventually discover, the person possessing that voice has more than a few strong opinions about what has happened and who set those things in motion.

There's no distinct tone to movie, which details how a widow opening a bookshop in an old house (called, appropriately enough, "the Old House"), which seems to have no special qualities or import, transforms every waking thought and dealing within the village. There are two distinct classes of people who live here: the remnants of the aristocratic way of life and the workers, who fish or serve at the wills and whims of the wealthy citizens, living in grand estates on the outskirts of town.

One wealthy couple wants Old House for seemingly hollow reasons. Nobody else, save for the widow, really cares.

The widow is Florence Green (Emily Mortimer), who has returned to Hardburough more than a decade after the death of her husband in the war. The two loved books. The village doesn't have a bookshop, so she decides to buy Old House, which has been abandoned for about five years and is situated perfectly along the main road, and open one there.

This decision perturbs Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), the wife of an esteemed army general (played by Reg Wilson), but naturally, she doesn't allow her irritation to show. Instead, she invites Florence to a party and starts talking about Old House as if it is hers—despite the facts that Florence possesses the deed, is living in it, and is preparing to open the store. Violet wants to open an art center there, apparently as a means to keep up her appearance as a respected philanthropist.

The rest of the story follows Florence as the shop opens and becomes successful. She hires a young girl named Christine (Honor Kneafsey) from a poor family to work the afternoons and Saturdays. She attracts the attention of Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), another member of the local elite, who essentially has become a hermit over the decades. The rumor is that his story is a tragic one—a young bride, drowned in the moors on the couple's honeymoon while she was retrieving ingredients to bake him a pie. Florence and Edmund strike up an epistolary relationship, with him requesting books of her suggestion, and that becomes a friendship.

Meanwhile, Violet goes about on a campaign to take Old House, though rumors, an attorney, an attack on the appearance of Lolita in the shop's window, and, ultimately, government legislation. The story and the conflict within it are as simple as can be. We keep waiting for Coixet to fill in some details or commentary about the characters, the class differences, the falsely subdued personalities, or anything, really, to turn this straightforward tale into something more than a superficial battle over real estate between and among unwavering characters.

The moment never arrives, so we have to take what we can get from the movie. The performances are appropriately restrained, with Clarkson making for a decent villain who has to bottle up her true sentiments and Nighy playing the uncomfortable Edmund with near-robotic movements and monotone delivery. Mortimer makes for a fine protagonist against the establishment—waifish in manner but strong in will.

There's nothing deeper than these obvious, surface-level elements, though. The Bookshop is too broad to work as drama, and it's too limited in its outlook on these characters and this situation to approach social satire. It sits in the quiet and dull middle ground.

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