This is another small-scale independent film about ordinary people that has captured viewer attention; it has been nominated for and won several international prizes since its film festival debut in 2017.  I cannot say that I share in the acclaim that this interesting but ultimately disappointing film has received.

Isabel Coixet’s film is set in 1959, in a small British seaport, where widow Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) wants to fix up her empty house as a bookstore.  Despite opposition from certain people she goes ahead with her plan and opens the bookstore, which is fairly successful at first.  She even befriends the town hermit (Bill Nighy), who proves to be a powerful ally.  But Florence is unable to make a go of it when the tables turn, and her fate is sealed when tragedy occurs.

Based on an acclaimed novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, it is easy to see how art house crowds could embrace this story.  But I didn’t.  It is fundamentally depressing, and Coixet either avoids the inclusion of detail which would help support the story, or else isn’t interested in making a realistic movie.  The seaport seems much too small to support a fancy bookstore, much less an arts center (the preferred option of the opposition).  I found it preposterous that Florence would gamble the bookstore’s fate on purchasing hundreds of copies of Lolita, the controversial Nabakov novel from which conservative readers would recoil.  Finally, the betrayal that Florence suffers at the hands of someone she trusts is astounding.  It’s no wonder her adventure ends in utter defeat.

Only the ending held intrigue for me.  The story is narrated by someone who is clearly identified only at the ending, and the impact that Florence has made upon this person’s life obviously changes the dynamic of the narrative.  It’s a fine conclusion, but that doesn’t negate all the melodrama and oddity that precedes it.  Movies like this should be believable and convincing, and this one does not qualify as either in my book.  ☆ ☆.  7 November 2018.