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The Bookshop-sp

This is a beautifully made film in which the idyllic setting is a small seaside town in England which looks even of an earlier time than the 1950s when it takes place. A widow who loves books buys an old warehouse and makes it into a bookstore. But there is resistance from particular people in the town who want the building to be an art center. The underlying theme is the admirable qualities of the woman who is dedicated and loves books and how she impacts an older man and a younger child. The movie is a little slow which perhaps allows the viewer to soak in the atmosphere and the depth of the characters.

Isabel Coixet is the director/writer and the story is based on a book by Penelope Fitzgerald, although the ending was unique to the film. The movie features a very sensitive performance by Emily Mortimer with excellent supporting roles by Patricia Clarkson, Bill Nighy and Honor Kneafsey.

It remains to be seen if the Millennials will appreciate why the filmmaker chose to linger on the love of books and the setting where they are actually displayed to see and to touch. (2018)

* * * *
Whatever Works – rm – People who like Woody Allen usually like Larry David. Allen chooses David to speak his words and act out his state of mind which basically is “what really matters, we are all going to die “. Thus we see a divorced, could have been a Nobel Prize winning physics professor, after a botched suicide attempt decides to live on his own in Manhattan. Along comes a pretty young girl from Mississippi who ends up living with the good professor. Allen’s current views on love, sex, relationships, death and everything else are seemingly demonstrated through the characters who inhabit this film. Everyone seems to be in an incongruous situation which makes for good comedy at the same time as we get insight into the struggle of the characters and of Woody Allen sitting at his typewriter or ultimately directing his actors. As expected the directing, production and acting by Larry David, Ed Begley Jr. Patricia Clarkson, and Evan Rachel Wood are on target and move this film into the higher level of a must see rating ( unless of course you don’t like Woody Allen ) 2009