When you hear his two hangups, one involving a silly, ever-present metal detector and another with how his land-bound heart feels in self-identity, the groans possible could sink the whole island into the Atlantic. For a guy that claims to hear voices, Anthony sure doesn’t listen. If Anthony would marry and take a wife, he would be seen as more suitable and ready. The slick New Yorker has little initiative to maintain it, other than maybe pursue Rosemary himself, with any devotion equal to the true son. Things become upended when the senior Tony, thinking of his impending death, decides to pass over his son and bequeath the family farm to his American nephew Adam Reilly (Jon Hamm). This is continued presently by Rosemary’s mother Aoife, played by Irish stage actress Dearbhia Molloy, and Anthony’s father Tony, the out-of-place Oscar winner Chrisopher Walken, who unfortunately narrates this story from beyond the grave. ![]() Worse, their humble mutual farming families in the Crossmolina area of County Mayo have long endured a love-hate strife over crossover land squabbles that have now spanned generations. ![]() Dreaming of Swan Lake and carrying on with hope, Rosemary pines to someone oblivious who says he won’t ever marry. Image courtesy of Bleecker Streetīlunt is Rosemary Muldoon, a feisty equestrian free spirit who has been in love with her neighbor Anthony Reilly (Dornan) all her life. That is the collective belief hanging like fog in Wild Mountain Thyme. In the words of one of Ireland’s ancient language, dia ár sábháil! There’s a line that says “the kinds of dreams kids have make adults miserable.” Sigh. There’s real beauty there, it’s a shame the movie didn’t have it other than the scenery. It’s as if the refrain of “will ye go” in the song is stuck by the living embodiment of “s–t or get off the pot” instead. Its romance is constantly saddled with blindness that misses the point of the lyrics. Wild Mountain Thyme tries so hard to climb higher. ![]() Unfortunately, this moment of the borrowed title song getting its proper spotlight is the rustic crest of this movie. With regrets, the man of her dreams, played by Jamie Dornan of the Fifty Shades series, isn’t there to see it and notice. Standing at her microphone alone and singing in tribute to her late mother and her own internal longing, it is the precise moment when her uncustomary character unfurls into someone grander than her brusque exterior. When “Wild Mountain Thyme” is crooned in this film at about the halfway point, by the alluring pipes of Emily Blunt, no less, the enchantment radiates. And then, to hear it sung! Whether you take it in with a traditional arrangement, a more contemporary spin, or something in between, the song pulls thematic heartstrings with ease. Speaking longingly of companionship amid the natural beauty of the Gaelic countryside, the wellspring of stirring imagery coming from its lyrics could inspire potential romance out of damn near any writer or playwright worth their salt. John Patrick Shanley’s dramedy Wild Mountain Thyme, the screen adaptation of his own 2014 Broadway play Outside Mullinger, matches the name of a well-worn poetic Scottish/Irish ballad.
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