The Bookshop

A film set in a small town on the east coast of England. The year is 1959. Florence, who lost her husband in the war, buys a damp building that has stood empty for years and opens the town's first bookshop. There is no library in the town and no bookseller. The richest woman in the town stands against her. She has another plan for that building and never says so openly; she works through dinners, requests and acquaintances instead. Florence has two allies: an old man who has not left his house in years and reads, and a girl who works in the shop. What the film describes is not the founding of a bookshop but how a town quietly pushes someone out. Nobody shouts and nobody threatens. The source is Penelope Fitzgerald's 1978 novel. Emily Mortimer plays Florence, Bill Nighy the old man and Patricia Clarkson the woman against her. Isabel Coixet directed. In Spain in 2018 the film won best film, best director and best adapted screenplay at the Goya Awards; it is not usual for a production shot in English to take those. A fitting choice for anyone who likes calm period drama and films about books. For a viewer expecting pace, it moves slowly and the ending brings no relief.