The Bookshop Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Isabel Coixet’s work, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though this movie turned out to be rather quaint and harmless, I actually really struggled to care about the damned thing though. I did remind me of ‘Chocolat’, a movie which my wife really enjoyed but which never really impressed me either. Basically, if you would replace chocolate with books, both movies pretty much followed the same plot and patterns. I still think that the directing was not bad though, at least, visually speaking. A big difference though was that, at least, Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp were terribly charismatic which was hardly the case, I’m afraid, with Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy, even if they are both some solid actors. The issues with both movies is that the troubles of opening a little shop in a little (seemingly backward) community were apparently supposed to be fascinating but, in both cases, I was never convinced. One of the reasons is that the people in these communities were so barely developed, they were all small walking clichés and it was therefore rather difficult to care about what the impact such shop might have on them. On top of that, in this case, I have to admit that I never really understood what was Violet Gamart’s agenda. I mean, sure, she was a massive bully, I did get that, but what was actually her problem with Florence Green and her bookshop? Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t care much for the damned thing, I guess it might still be worth a look, at least if you like the genre.

Coixet is trying evary theme everywhere, as Hollywood and it has such universal clisés. The courage, the so bad aristocrats, the lonely good hearted widower, not so much to add.