The Bookshop

Seen at the Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC

Cecil says: I had no idea what to expect from The Bookshop, except that I – correctly – assumed it would revolve around a book shop…

Funnily enough I realised as the voiceover began that I had been expecting a quaint American small town book shop and some story built around that. Just shows how ingrained our expectation of American culture is on our screens. But, no, The Bookshop is filmed mostly on location in Northern Ireland (we recognised some of the coastal scenes), and I was interested in how many of the credits rolling by at the end of the film seemed to be of Catalan origin (and sure enough, the film was written and directed by Isabel Coixet from Barcelona, and she involved lots of Catalan folk in the production – good for her, I say).

However, this says nothing about the film itself. The voiceover runs right through the film and I won’t do a spoiler on who the character turns out to be whose voice it is, but another surprise only a few seconds in was the appearance strolling into sight over the horizon of Bill Nighy. I had no idea he was in the film at all, but I knew Bea would be pleased, and if I was a betting man, I’d have a good chance of winnings if I bet on Bill Nighy appearing in pretty well every film we see these days.

The premise of the film: outsider comes into small village in (not totally clear what era – but since Lolita has just been published, it suggests 1950s) England with a desire to convert on old house into a bookshop. Against her is one of the local dignitaries, who has aspirations to have a local arts centre housed there; and at the first party the prospective bookshop owner attends, she gets fairly short shrift from most locals, who are either definitely in the Duchess’s camp or are clearly not interested in books.

So far it smacks a little of Vicar of Dibley. But there isn’t much humour here, and the pace is fairly slow. But the plot does develop nicely and relationship between Emily Mortimer (Florence Green) and Bill Nighy (Edmund Brundish) is rather nice to watch as it slowly develops, though never quite materialises, rather like in Remains of the Day.

Looking at the book industry today (not that I know much about it), it’s gratifying that there are still independent book shops doted around the place, and we always try to drop by on our travels. It can’t have been easy even in the 1950s to make a bookshop in a small village profitable, but it’s unimaginable now that such a bookshop – in a village that can’t have had that many inhabitants altogether – would take a gamble and order 200 copies of a new release like Lolita. Is there any book today which might sell like that?

***

Bea says: I am a life long book lover, and hence a bookshop lover, so any film that purports to be about either is onto a winner with me, and if it also has Bill Nighy in it – well even better.  You would think that would mean I would give this a 5 star rating, but actually the plot is a little slow, even for me and I am pretty tolerant of that, and I just didn’t feel I got enough inside the head of the main character to really embody the film – I watched the “action” (such as there was), rather than embodying it, so I felt a sense of distance.  I noted in the credits that it is adapted from a novel and I would now like to read the novel, to see if the sense of distance is the same.  I did like the neat ending, where we see the legacy of children being around books, bookshops and book lovers, and it did let me dream a little about running a small bookshop in a small town….

Overall recommended for book lovers everywhere, for a Sunday afternoon or cozy winters evening.

***1/2

Shadow Dancer

Cecil says: We'd just been to Northern Ireland earlier this summer, so were keen to see this film. On one level, it's historical: beginning with a sectarian killing in the early 1970s but then picking up the threads and the characters some 20 years later, just as peace talks began to make some headway. On another level, it's what the French would term a 'drame psychologique', with issues of trust, loyalty, tribalism, community which never really go away.

Northern Ireland is a better place now than it was 20 years ago, though there are still tensions and a sense of the tribal in some parts even today.

It was a tough place to grow up in, though. And this film does a good job of showing the underlying tension around every aspect of life. I think I'm right in saying that nobody laughs even once throughout the 100 minutes of the film - it's grim. But it's good drama.

Andrea Riseborough stars as the sister of the little boy, shot in a 1970s sectarian attack. She's good, interracting with Mac from MI5, and her family, itself torn apart by conflicting loyalties and demands. Kevin of the IRA is an ever-present sinister character, making sure 'his' people don't stray.

No spoilers in this review. Just to say that, for me, the only weakness in the storyline comes right at the end, when someone acts without the due caution you'd surely be used to taking after years in a place like Northern Ireland.

Interestingly, among the key actors in the film, only Brid Brennan - playing Ma - seems to be from Northern Ireland herself (there's even Gillian Anderson playing the top MI5 bod), and maybe that's why she gets her part across so well.

This is good drama, but no barrel of laughs.

***

Bea says:  Grim, gritty, and as Cecil says, not a whole lot of laughs, but a good, suspense-filled thriller plot as we follow the story of a family who are deeply involved in the Troubles, and their complex relationship with both the IRA and MI5.   Set in London and Belfast in the early 1990s, I enjoyed the focus of the film on the life and choices of a young woman during that period of history (although I didn't think all of the costuming was entirely accurate).  I didn't guess all the twists, and if you enjoy Spooks, you'll like this.

***