(Image credit: Bleecker Street)
The late 2010s and early 2020s gifted us a small but exciting run of unapologetically sincere romantic dramedies. I deeply miss those days and those films. They were quirky little gems that swung for the emotional fences, matching the big feelings I was navigating at the time. "Wild Mountain Thyme" is a more recent specimen with that same vulnerable heart, but it's the movie's sheer weirdness that still holds me captive. I stumbled upon it one evening on Hulu after a long, aimless scroll, and to this day, I still can’t quite believe what I watched.On paper, the premise sounds straightforward. Two neighboring farmers, Rosemary (Emily Blunt) and Anthony (Jamie Dornan), have grown up next door to each other in rural Ireland. Rosemary has spent her life harbor-bound in love with Anthony. Anthony, meanwhile, is paralyzed by a private affliction he refuses to share with a soul. To make matters worse, his aging father (Christopher Walken) is contemplating selling the family farm out from under him to his slick American nephew (Jon Hamm). It has all the markings of a quiet movie about quiet people in a lush, rain-soaked country.Except "Wild Mountain Thyme" is also, secretly, a work of magical realism. To say more would spoil the fun, but if you love films that masquerade as normal only to throw a massive curveball, this oddball is well worth your evening.What's 'Wild Mountain Thyme' about?Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) is an Irish farmer who's spent most of her life in love with the very stubborn, very strange man who works the land next to hers. That would be Anthony Reilly (Jamie Dornan), a man who's never quite figured out how to live in his own skin, let alone return Rosemary's affection. The two of them have been neighbors, friends and unspoken almost-somethings for as long as anyone in the village can remember, and Rosemary's patience is starting to wear thin.
