The Bookshop

While the liberating power of books is one theme in Isabel Coixet’s adaptation of Penelope Fitzgerald’s titular 1978 novel, The Bookshop is really about nasty small-town politics, set in a Suffolk coastal village in 1959, although one can imagine the story being transplanted almost anywhere. Mousy war widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) settles in the aptly-named Hardborough, purchasing a decrepit property called the Old House and transforming it into a bookstore. Unfortunately, the town’s self-proclaimed social leader and arbiter of culture, Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), who hosts exquisitely planned parties on her rich husband’s estate, wants the Old House to be converted into an arts center, and she enlists others to aid her in undermining the bookstore. Florence is supported by a few locals, even some who rarely read, but her greatest champion is Hardborough’s only real book-lover, Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), a reclusive widower around whom rumors swirl. Although he avoids people, Edmund invites Florence to supply him with books that she thinks are worth his time, and their connection grows into something verging on romance. But even though he haltingly comes out of seclusion to plead her case, his intervention might not be enough to save Florence’s shop in the face of opposition from Gamart, who even enlists Parliament in her schemes. There is much to enjoy here, especially the performances of Mortimer and Nighy, who invest their moments together with a degree of fragile, incipient affection that is quite moving. They make The Bookshop well worth a visit. Recommended. (F. Swietek)