Movie Review: ‘The Bookshop’

Review by Jacquelin Hipes

If the intention behind Isabel Coixet’s latest film The Bookshop is to laud the invigorating power of books, it fails in spectacularly boring fashion. Among all of the declarations of devotion and care, this dull-edged and lifeless chronicle of small town vendettas never manages to find any demonstrable passion for audiences to latch onto. The non-action centers on Florence Green (Emily Mortimer), a World War II widow who has chosen to open a small bookshop in one of the old, abandoned buildings along the main street of her town. It doesn’t seem to concern her that very few of her neighbors express much verve for the pastime of reading, nor is she troubled by the opposition of Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), who dominates the area’s social affairs and wishes to instead convert the building into a local arts center.

What might have unfolded as a simmering escalation of polite warfare between women representing social elitism and the common cause instead stagnates. Florence’s investment of time and money in acquiring the property explains her reticence to choose another site, yet Violet’s preoccupation with stonewalling the small bookshop is given no clear origin. Furthermore, Clarkson lacks the controlled menace currently on spectacular display in HBO’s Sharp Objects. Violet appears perpetually bored by her spat with Florence, which hardly encourages those watching to invest.

As the lead, Mortimer is given little to work with. Although matters are never worse off with her presence, she never manages to rescue the poor material in her hands either. Bill Nighy, however, remains in consistently pleasing form. Despite the strange decision to have him narrate a series of letters directly into the camera, he infuses Florence’s reclusive ally and avid reader, Edmund Brundish, with gruff charm. The best scenes of the film are far and away those that include him, particularly those that give him enough room to work beneath the dialogue.

A film can be quiet yet still hold an audience’s interest. Not every story requires high drama, explosions, or slithering intrigue to captivate, yet if a story chooses to remain focused on the small and workaday, it must strive to find the charm, the wit, or the heart hidden in those ordinary moments. The Bookshop blithely bypasses every opportunity at capturing such things, crossing the line from understated into boring with a disregard for the talented cast at its disposal and the wealth of feeling contained behind those gorgeous, vintage covers.