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Before we get started on the pungent and chunky Irish stew known as “Wild Mountain Thyme,” let’s take a moment to discuss the various accents. They’re a nuisance, and they’re found all over the place, too.
Given that an Irish accent is among the most difficult to master unless you have Streepian-level mimicry abilities, this isn’t surprising. Hell, according to my most recent Ancestry.com DNA analysis, I’m 44 percent Irish, which explains my hereditary alcoholism and inability to tan, and I wouldn’t even consider playing with one while joking with friends, let alone as the star of a motion picture.
And yet, we have a slew of established actors who are attempting to do just that, albeit with varying levels of success. Because he is Irish himself, Jamie Dornan is unsurprisingly the most accomplished of the cast members—albeit from Belfast, which is several hours away on the opposite coast from County Mayo, where “Wild Mountain Thyme” is set. Emily Blunt’s voice is more wobbly than you might expect, given that she comes from a musical theater background that should, in theory, prepare her for such a difficult task. And then there’s Christopher Walken, who is essentially delivering his lines in his trademark halting style, with just a smidgeon of a brogue thrown in for good measure. It’s a little… awkward. It’s almost as if he’s not even trying, which may be to his advantage.
However, it also serves as a distraction right from the start, as we hear Walken say in an enthusiastic voiceover at the beginning of the film: “Welcome to Ireland. My name is Tony Reilly, and I’d like to introduce myself. “I’m no longer alive!”
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The conflicted reaction you’ll have to these three sentences sets the tone for the rest of John Patrick Shanley’s film, and they’ll set the tone for the rest of the film as well. You’ll be torn between feeling baffled and amused over and over again, although by the end, the former feeling will almost certainly outweigh the latter. Outside Mullingar, the screen adaptation of Shanley’s Broadway play, continues to strive for big, theatrical emotions, resulting in a film that is relentlessly whimsical. When he trots out a litany of Irish stereotypes, it’s difficult to tell whether he means them in a sincere manner or as a knowing self-parody. Whenever you see sweeping aerial shots of lush, verdant hills, accompanied by the sound of lilting pan flutes in the background, you half expect to see a leprechaun bounding across the countryside, hiding from the children who are “after me, Lucky Charms.”
Within this visually arresting idyll (which is the work of cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt), there is a romantic comedy that is desperately attempting to capture the lightness of a fairy tale in its tone. As you’d expect from the Oscar-winning writer of “Moonstruck,” the dialogue jumps and snaps at times, and this is no exception. When it’s raining, everyone looks dapper, and there are plenty of warm sweaters and clunky boots to keep you warm and dry. However, these characters are little more than a collection of quirks, and the thing that is preventing them from remaining together indefinitely has to be the most ridiculous of all contrivances to put it mildly.
Wild Mountain Thyme Quiz
Tony Reilly’s son, Anthony Reilly, and Blunt co-star as Rosemary Muldoon and Anthony Reilly, respectively, who have grown up in this rural wonderland and have spent their entire lives on neighboring farms. She’s sassy and doesn’t put up with nonsense. He’s sweet and a little awkward at the same time. In spite of the fact that they’re clearly meant for each other, a slight from childhood, which we see in an early flashback, and the rights to a small piece of land connecting their families’ properties serve as insurmountable obstacles to their obvious attraction to one another. Besides being completely in sync with one another, having shared decades of history, and possessing an exciting chemistry, they’re the only single, beautiful people their age in the entire world. As a result, we must wait a total of 102 minutes for them to finally admit that they have been secretly in love with each other all along.
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Unfortunately for Anthony, the arrival of Adam, Anthony’s cousin from New York, is what finally causes Rosemary and Anthony to lose their romantic equilibrium. Despite the fact that he is played by Jon Hamm with all-American, capitalistic swagger and greed (and, mercifully, no accent), he serves as our conduit for marveling at this place that is both beautiful and stuck in time. Rosemary’s father has flown to Ireland in hopes of staking his claim to the Reilly family farm, which includes the disputed stretch of road that connects it to Rosemary’s—and perhaps even to Rosemary herself.
As the farce progresses, we are treated to a variety of bizarre encounters, such as Anthony practicing his proposal to Rosemary on a donkey, which causes a rumor among the local eccentrics that he has a penchant for domestic animals. In addition, he falls out of a boat, and while Dornan appears to be up for the change of pace that this type of physical comedy provides him, it is not exactly his strongest suit. Rosemary, on the other hand, has a magnificent horse that, in an obvious metaphor, has a bad habit of running away from her. But when she gets up on stage at the pub and sings the traditional Irish folk song that gives the film its title, she also gets to show off her more vulnerable side.
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And it’s in these kinds of moments, when the film slows down and stops trying so hard to please us, that the film begins to connect with us. A quiet scene in Rosemary’s kitchen, where she and Anthony are trapped inside during a storm, is the most powerful scene in the entire film. When you listen to this climactic, claustrophobic conversation, you’ll hear genuine emotion and tension mixed in between the laughs. In addition, because Blunt and Dornan’s performances are so strong in this film, you are likely to forget that their accents are so weak.
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However, it is only a glimmer in the eye of the beholder. In the end, Shanley reveals the true reason Anthony and Rosemary have been apart for all these years, sending the film off the rails and into territory far beyond those scenic, winding roads and rolling hills. Considering the bizarre nature of this piece of information, it truly puts the “wild” in “Wild Mountain Thyme.”
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For more personality quizzes check this: Bohemian Rhapsody Quiz.
