“Wild Mountain Thyme” doesn’t work.
You name it, something’s off with it, from Christopher Walken’s wee occasional County Mayo dialect, by way of an outer borough to be named later, to another character’s painful revelation that he thinks he’s a bee. A bee. Is he speaking metaphorically? Horticulturally? Why can’t I take his belief at face value and move on?
The writer-director John Patrick Shanley is the dramatist and screenwriter behind some wonderful and adroit and eccentric things. He won an Oscar for the 1987 “Moonstruck,” and which boasts one of the great wrap-ups in the romantic comedy genre. Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Doubt” (which made a good, juicy transition to the screen) is drum-tight. But much of his other stage and film work is less plot-driven, more shambling, relying on painfully funny lovesickness and dark whimsy. (”Joe Versus the Volcano” is a cult Shanley favorite among many.)
Like all his work, “Wild Mountain Thyme” comes from the heart. It comes also from “Outside Mullingar,” Shanley’s four-character 2014 play. The basics involve two adjoining rural Ireland farms and two lovelorn eligible natives. Since childhood, strapping Rosemary (Emily Blunt) has been smitten with her neighbor, introspective and suspiciously well-coiffed Anthony (Jamie Dornan of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” who looks like the word “farm” might be new to him). Anthony’s dad (Walken) is threatening to leave the family farm to an American relation (Jon Hamm, in a role added for the film).
Anthony carries around a metal detector, and at the end we learn what he has been seeking. Rosemary’s wise mum (Dearbhla Molloy, who did the play on Broadway, and who you believe, fully) copes with her failing health. Meantime Anthony and Rosemary agonize over their lifelong, push-pull attraction.
In this case, “opening up” the original text has only served to make “Wild Mountain Thyme” tamer and less persuasive. Rosemary’s impulsive trip to New York taps Shanley’s romantic fable into a half-hearted triangle. She’s looking to make something happen; she has spent years waiting for Anthony to say something, do something, and to talk about something other than cutting turf.
“Men are useless,” he says.
“That’s not so,” Rosemary counters. “Men aren’t useless.”
“What’s a man for, now? What’s his place?” Anthony despairs.
“That’s for you to say,” she answers.
That’s nearly an effective exchange, and you notice it, because too many others don’t even come close.
The Mayo scenery holds up its end of the bargain. But as director, Shanley hasn’t the writer, i.e. himself, any favors. The music is drippy and constant, the wobble from comedy to drama feels off, and the dialects have been reamed in the Irish press. Charm resists calculation; even if actors get some going, even if a writer creates an approximation in or between the lines, deliberately manufactured charm curdles so easily. The one success story of “Wild Mountain Thyme” belongs to Blunt, who has yet to give a poor or lazily considered performance.
She keeps her record intact here.
'WILD MOUNTAIN THYME'
1.5 stars (out of 4)
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements and suggestive comments)
Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Playing: Premieres Friday on various streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime, YouTube, Apple TV.
