Wild Mountain Thyme

Directed by John Patrick Shanley, Wild Mountain Thyme follows Jamie Dornan’s Anthony and Emily Blunt’s Rosemary as they attempt to overcome certain personal problems in the buildup to their inevitable romantic coupling. Filmmaker Shanley, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a mostly compelling and ingratiating endeavor that fares best in its low-key first half, as the movie, in its initial stages, focuses on the fairly irresistible down-to-earth exploits of its uniformly endearing, affable characters – with, especially, the emphasis on the back-and-forth banter between Anthony and his crotchety father (Christopher Walken’s Tony) undoubtedly an obvious early highlight within the proceedings. It is, as such, relatively easy to overlook Wild Mountain Thyme’s decidedly theatrical bent, both in terms of its staginess and ongoing emphasis on stylized dialogue, and there’s little doubt, as well, that a mid-story appearance by Jon Hamm, cast as Anthony’s American cousin, provides the movie with a jolt of energy and liveliness. The film, then, does stumble as it progresses into an almost needlessly oddball final stretch that seems to be spinning its wheels to a certain extent (eg the talk of being a bumblebee is just silly, ultimately), and yet it’s impossible to deny the effectiveness of the movie’s moving final stretch – with the end result a predominantly solid piece of work that feels like it could (and should) be better.

*** out of ****