Review by Anne Hailes: WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
This film has had its share of brick bats, especially Jamie Dornan and his Irish accident. Well, I have just watched it and I can’t see anything wrong with it, in fact Jamie is very sweet as the son of the farm who has a secret and vows never to marry even though he has grown up beside the feisty Rosemary (Emily Blunt), daughter of the next door farm, perfect wife material.
When she was a little girl her father boosted her confidence by telling her she is a beautiful swan and she can achieve anything she sets her mind on and she dances out of the cottage in her yellow wellies pirouetting off into a field of cows.
As parents died so the farms came to the young people although there was an American cousin who threatened to take the land for himself, he came to visit and hit it off with Rosemary and invited her to return with him to New York. She said no; but sometime later she remembered her father’s words and flew to meet Adam (Jon Hamm), specifically to attend the Swan Lake ballet and re-connect with the White Swan. Adam kisses her but she is unimpressed, she knows her fate lay with the man in the next farm and reinvigorated by watching the white swan, she flies home the next day determined to get to the heart of her childhood crush.
One little cameo role brought colour to a fairly monochrome script. Eleanor (Lydia McGuinness) is a girl Anthony met in the village pub; they walked in the countryside, sat on the wall of the graveyard and swrapped secrets. She shocked him by confiding that she slept with a priest - twice - and in her mother’s bed! We don’t hear his as he whispers it causing the girl to laugh until she topples backwards off the wall and into the graves.
It’s all a bit stage Irish and really I don’t believe will prove a big hit with the public, The Quiet Man it isn’t even though quirky characters pop in and out, a land dispute and beautiful Mayo scenery but there is little chemistry between the two would be lovers and I certainly didn’t bond with any of the neighbours.
Jamie Dornan is convincing as Anthony, a shy strange awkward man with a bizarre secret and reluctant to declare his love and Emily Blunt who believes her father’s advice said she was glad Anthony was tall, “men need the height to balance the truth and goodness of women.”
It takes 2 minutes and 10 seconds to get through the opening credits and amazingly 7 minutes and 53 seconds end credits.
Is it worth it? Yes if you have time to sit and relax with a cup of coffee and a couple of chocolate digestives but don’t expect it to stir your emotions or to leave a lasting memory; although the theme tune A Bunch of Thyme will.
