Movie Breakdown: Wild Mountain Thyme (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

The trailer from this movie is seemingly a sentient time traveling creature that has beamed itself from the late 1980s, consumed a handful of modern actors and then situated itself in the hearts and minds of the trailer loving populace. It looks dated. But kind of cute? Also, John Patrick Shanley wrote the screenplay for Moonstruck, one of the great rom-coms of all time. I’m conflicted.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Wild Mountain Thyme is a decidedly 80s rom-com in theory. It has the sort of fable-like tone of so many of the movies of the time period. It has good looking, but blue-collar-esque actors slowly circling the question of “will they? won’t they?” It has the folksy charm of an era where we were still willingly ignoring the horrors of the everyday. It is, kind of, charming. It is also a baffling exercise in plotting, pace and has one of the oddest character motivations I’ve ever seen on screen. At it’s wet, Irish heart, the film is a love story about two kids on two farms who grow up and have to deal with the realities of life – death, marriage, choice. Jamie Dornan is the potential heir to his crotchety father’s farm (the father played by Christopher Walken in a pretty touching role), Emily Blunt is his neighbor, a chain-smoking lady who has fostered a love for him her entire life. And if glanced at briefly, you could just say this was a dated rom-com, a story about two people finding each other and all the obstacles that pop up along the way. But the film feels (for better and mostly worse) more organic than that – the story starts and sputters and takes leaps with time and characters and sometimes seems to be aiming to say something, but also just seems to revel in the odd moment where nothing really happens. Also, Jon Hamm shows up and plays not-Don Draper and, yeah, he’s charming but also it feels like the film could’ve gotten away without him. And in the end, oh the end, when you’re really, really ready for everything to wrap up and you think you know where it’s all going, well, let me tell you – you do not. When Jamie Dornan admits the secret that has been keeping him from marrying for so, so long, I laughed out loud. I shook my head. I thought, “This is not a rom-com, this is an unintentional experiment in form wrapped in the loose rags of the rom-com costume.” Strangely, Wild Mountain Thyme will leave you with the enjoyable, though slightly cloyingly, sweet feel of a rom-com. You will think of the beginning of the film – affable Jamie Dornan, lovely Emily Blunt – and you will think of the end – everyone gathered in song – and the twisting oddness of the middle will disappear. So, maybe, just maybe, it’s a successful experiment.

One Last Thought:

I’m still reeling from this film’s final revelation. Maybe I always will be.