This is a simple story of a woman who opens a bookshop in a small coastal English village and the cultural forces that push against her to serve their own interest (largely their desire to get the building out from under her). If it has a fault, it's that it's, perhaps, a little too mild - while there's clearly the promise that this could go far harsher, instead it's mostly kept at the level of "nice with any knives that are about firmly kept under wraps". Lead Emily Mortimer plays perhaps just that little bit too naive, never quite joining the battle for her own fate. Patricia Clarkson displays an impressive English accent and an even more impressive persona of polite steeliness, and Bill Nighy proves why he keeps on coming back to this sorta stuff by downplaying the whimsy and instead bringing an inner toughness to a somewhat wounded and initially aloof character.
This ultimately falls into the "going in the right direction but would like it to have gone further" for me.
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