Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Excellent, a Must See

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Courage to open a book shop,but not for long because the powerful grumpy lady will closed as soon as possible. Yes,that's the reality of men in the power and small people who try do something useful. Emily Mortimer and Bill Nigty great acting. As for me lovely entertainment

The veteran actors and picturesque setting were not quite enough to make up for the weak plot in this period drama. Emily Mortimer plays a widow who opens a bookshop in a derelict house in a tranquil English village. She is opposed by an aristocratic snob played by Patricia Clarkson who decides that the town would be better served if the house were to be used as an arts center. Bill Nighy plays the literature-living recluse who comes to Mortimer's aid when the battle lines have been drawn. Mortimer, Nighy, and Clarkson were a joy to watch, but they didn't have much to work with. I left the cinema disappointed that the movie had only scratched the surface of what could have been a meaty portrayal of courage and determination in the face of societal prejudice.

In 1959, Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) buys the dilapidated 'Old House' in the small coastal town of Hardborough, East Anglia, takes over the unsold stock of a business in London that has closed, and opens a bookshop. Reading is not a past-time that's widely popular in Hardborough. The townsfolk are convinced that the bookshop of kind-hearted Mrs Green, widowed during World War II, will fail - not for economic reasons or lack of readers but because the formidable, ruthless and vindictive Mrs Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), self-appointed patroness of all public activities in the town, wants 'Old House' to be an Arts and Cultural Centre. Florence does have supporters. There's young Christine (Honor Kneafsey), worldly beyond her years, who helps out after school; and Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), the local squire, a voracious reader and Florence's best customer. The film moves at a leisurely pace. A pace that allows us time to appreciate whatever is on the screen, be it conflict, embarrassment, unresolved tension or moments of reflection. A pace that allows time for the cinematographer (Jean-Claude Larrieu) to linger on water, trees, fields and tall grass wavering in the wind. Isabel Coixet, the director, wrote the screenplay which she based on a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. The movie - filmed in County Down, Northern Ireland and Barcelona, Spain - won three of Spain's Goya Awards (best film; best director; best adapted screenplay) earlier this year. The cast performs magnificently. Florence: naïve, courageous, and trusting; Christine: precocious and determined; Edmund: reclusive and supportive; Violet: persuasive, highly motivated, and effective. This painfully tender movie - rigorously unsentimental - wormed its way into my affections. It's a film that touches the emotions with an ending that's bitter-sweet.

Please! Overworked, overwrought, overacted and ... over-rated.The music is laughably inappropriate -- soaring violins and orchestral splashes do not match the script.Bill Nighy plays ... Bill Nighy. He does his best, but the awkward script is against him.There is too much missing background. For example, the heroine has been a widow for 16 years ... so what did she do all that time? Where did she get her money from? After she loses everything, what the hell does she do/is she going to do?Why the long, lingering shots of water, fields, trees? They add nothing to the film; they have no purpose except to look "pretty"I'm sorry, but I've seen student efforts that rated as highly as this ... and not as pretentious.