✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, Spain, Germany · 2017
Rated PG · 1h 50m
Director Isabel Coixet
Starring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, Hunter Tremayne
Genre Romance, Drama
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In a small English town in 1959, a woman decides to open a bookshop, against polite but ruthless local opposition—a decision which becomes a political minefield.
In theory there’s plenty here to engage: a critique of Little England philistinism, the arrival of provocative literature into a sleepy backwater that barely reads, the revolt of a courageous woman against the establishment. Yet none of that comes to life.
Though nearly nothing happens in this movie besides a woman opening a shop and beginning a standoffish friendship with a reclusive man, I still found myself drawn in, just as I was drawn to Iain’s discreet disaster of a baked Alaska (please check it out if you haven’t seen this TGBBS episode); sometimes the quiet is enticing.
The Bookshop is steadfast in avoiding drama at all costs.
This is a frustratingly patchy adaptation, in which some of Fitzgerald’s shrewdest observations on the savage politics and politesse of supposedly tranquil English village life get a little bit lost in the Europudding. A fine, sensitive leading turn from Emily Mortimer helps shore up these quiet, lightly dust-covered proceedings, but can’t quite put The Bookshop in the black.
The Hollywood Reporter by Jonathan Holland
Its subversive undercurrent, embodied in fine performances by Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy, is what makes it really interesting.
The Seattle Times by Moira Macdonald
Those who love books, picturesque English villages and getting lost in actors’ faces should be very happy
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is a strange, subdued, rather miserable film, interestingly perceptive on conformism and philistinism as a way of life, and on the disconcerting wiles the inhabitants use in order to thwart Florence’s entirely reasonable plans.
Message and metaphor are all and The Bookshop, with its terrific cast and lovely setting, barely overcomes that burden.
Nighy and Mortimer have just a couple of scenes together, but they’re easily the film’s best: both actors sink gratifyingly into the nuances of this incipient friendship, bond over books you actually believe they’ve read, and give the film its best hope of doing Fitzgerald justice.
The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide
For all the real-estate machinations and nefarious scheming, there are too many inert scenes that drain the energy from this already plodding story.
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