Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

Directed by: John Patrick Shanley | 102 minutes | romance, drama | Actors: Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Christopher Walken, Jon Hamm, Dearbhla Molloy, Don Wycherley, Clare Barrett, Darragh O’Kane, Abigail Coburn, Anna Weekes, Barry McGovern, Lydia McGuinness, Michael McCormack, Tommy O’Neill

If you want to enjoy a romantic film without hesitation, in the sense of: chocolate is necessary to get through life, you can have fun with ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’. His or her: because we must of course remain gender neutral when it comes to romantic films, you understand that.

In romantic movies, there are usually issues between husband and wife that need to be resolved. Often the woman is willing, but the men are difficult, or the woman wants too much – namely two men. A painful thing in reality, but not in films like ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’.

Movies like this take a wide-angle zoom in on a juicy Irish farmland, where Emily Blunt in a stole skirt makes ballet moves, while a goofy farm boy (Dornan) she’s in love forgets to ask for her hand, leaving her with a creepy American. (Hamm) has to start dating before the farm boy has completed his incarnation.

In movies like this it’s just like in real life: women can be stubborn furies, but they don’t stop until the young man on duty has promised absolute faithfulness. In ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (named after an Irish traditional) the lack of this is something simple, such as a shy nature or the wedding ring of the deceased mother that has been lost. That happens to all of us.

You don’t need much more plot, and hey, who could argue with Emily Blunt, who does a good job, and Christopher Walken, who plays a minor role as the father of the farmer’s son. It’s all such a feel-good silliness that you wonder why Mary is in love with Anthony the Farmer.

He must be pretty attractive when he takes off his wellies, but Stan Laurel is nothing.