She duly buys the ramshackle Old House in Hardborough, moves in and opens a bookshop on the premises. Despite winning three Goyas and an impressive performance at the Spanish box-office, it’s unlikely that critical response will be uniformly positive outside its director’s home country.Īfter several “hazy years” of reading and grieving, the widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) decides to dust herself off and bring a long-held dream to life. For some reason, Coixet’s adaptation throws those elements away, leaving only a moribund drama about the triumph of the small-minded. Set in 1959, it tells how the small-minded burghers of a coastal town in the east of England conspire against the town’s only bookshop, whose owner’s cultural presumption includes stocking Nabokov’s Lolita.ĭespite its pessimistic ending, Fitzgerald infused her story with satirical wit and colourful characters. Most credit goes to Mortimer, who exudes grace and quiet strengthīy all accounts, Coixet’s source material, Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1978, Booker Prize-nominated novel, is strong. Yet surprisingly few have mined the possibilities ( Notting Hill had its moments) and Isabel Coixet certainly has nothing upbeat in mind with The Bookshop. It’s possible to imagine a film having fun with a bookshop setting – contriving a confluence of bookish obsessives, romantics, hobbyists and academics, their myriad stories and relationships crackling to life amid the shelves.
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