Written and Directed by Isabel Coixet
Starring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighyand Patricia Clarkson
Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes
MPAA rating: PG for thematic elements, language, and brief smoking

by Deborah Krieger

The Bookshop is a lovely-looking film, but that’s really all there is to recommend it. I’m not familiar with the acclaimed novel upon which this adaptation is based, but the experience of watching The Bookshop is like taking in a version of Chocolat without any of the latter film’s vitality, emotion, or sensuality. The original novel actually predates Chocolat (and its respective source text), but the forty-year gap between The Bookshop book and The Bookshop movie only serves to make nearly every plot point and character beat seem incredibly clichéd and played out. We have the weary, earnest widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer), who decides to open a bookshop in her dreary little English village; we have the wealthy, petty, manipulative Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson) who wants to stop her; we have Christine, the precious, devilishly charming child who helps Florence at the shop (Honor Kneafsey); we have Mr. Brundish, the mysterious, reclusive benefactor who supports Florence in her cause (Bill Nighy); and, most importantly, we have the expected coterie of small-minded, suspicious, incurious townsfolk who, ultimately, let Florence (and the cause of literary appreciation) down. There’s even an overly-explanatory narration that turns out to have been a recollection by the aforementioned child the entire time.