Title – Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

Director – John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)

Cast – Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, Christopher Walken

Plot – Irish farmers and long-term neighbours Anthony (Dornan) and Rosemary (Blunt) seem destined to be together but something is holding Anthony back from making a move, a fact he may come to regret when American businessman Adam (Hamm) arrives on the scene.

“There’s nothing more dangerous…than an Irish woman in love”

Review by Eddie on 15/06/2021

Based purely on face value, there is no way one would head into the picturesque Irish romantic drama Wild Mountain Thyme expecting a bizarre head-scratcher of a movie but John Patrick Shanley’s feature length adaptation of his own Broadway play is exactly that, a bizarre oddity that defies explanation by even the most seasoned of film scholars.

Set in the green surrounds of Ireland and centred around the will they or wont they relationship between Jamie Dornan’s strange and hard to define Anthony and Emily Blunt’s far too tolerant and kind-hearted fellow farmer/neighbour Rose, a woman of whom seems obsessed beyond measure that she is to marry Anthony and live out a happy life together despite him never seeming to earn this affection, Thyme starts off relatively straight forward but before long you start to smell something very strange cooking as Shanley takes us further and further on a journey we couldn’t possibly have prepared for.

Upon release late last year and early this year in some territories, the internet and critics from around the world had a field day tearing apart and dissecting Thyme’s myriad collection of oddities and odd occurrences that culminates in one of the most bizarre and unexplainable final acts in recent memory, a finale that will no doubt set Thyme up for a long and much-talked about life in the movie discussion scene that it would’ve otherwise surely never have had.

Having experienced first hand the tale of Anthony and Rose’s potential life as a couple, a tale that makes you wonder for the most part why on earth the charisma free and dim-witted Anthony wouldn’t jump at the chance to be Rose’s partner in crime, its hard not to just blurt out and want to talk about what on earth was going on here to make such a talented cast think this film was a good idea but to ensure viewers can enjoy/be shocked by what a strange affair this is, I will keep the joyous disaster a mystery for all to partake in.

What’s most frustrating and unfortunate for the film is that there are genuinely great moments littered throughout this yarn.

From the great setting, the sometimes very funny humor and the committed turns from leading lady Blunt and the always great Christopher Walken as Anthony’s long-suffering father, Thyme at times feels like a film that could’ve been something but instead is memorable purely for that fact its so downright bizarre and increasingly off-kilter that it needs to be seen to be believed.

Final Say – 

A film that should never have been strange ends up being one of the most surprisingly odd occurrences in recent times and while the film is far from good, Wild Mountain Thyme should be viewed with the mandate that you need to be prepared to be shocked by what unfolds.

2 farm gates out of 5