Emily Blunt, Jon Hamm, Christopher Walken and Dearbhla Molloy have joined the cast of John Patrick Shanley’s Wild Mountain Thyme.
They join Jamie Dornan in the romance feature, which is an adaptation of Shanley’s Outside Mullingar. Blunt replaces Holliday Grainger, who was originally set to star.
Anthony (Dornan) always seems to be out in the fields working, worn down by his father’s (Walken) constant belittling. But what really stings is his father’s threat to bequeath the family farm to his American cousin Adam (Hamm). Rosemary (Blunt) at first seems to hold a grudge for having been shamed by Anthony in childhood, but the sparks between them would keep a bonfire blazing through the night. Her mother Aoife (Molloy) strives to unite the families before it is too late.
Hollywood stars Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan and Jon Hamm happily posed for photos with restaurant staff as they enjoyed a night out in Mayo on Thursday.
The actors, who are in Ballina filming a new movie, had dinner at Jalan Jalan restaurant after making a reservation under the fake name, Karen.
WILD MOUNTAIN THYME I Official Trailer I Bleecker Street
Wild Mountain Thyme' is a Star-Studded Irish Romantic Comedy at the Virtual KCET Cinema Series on December 1st....immediately following the screening, Deadline’s chief film critic Pete Hammond, who can also be seen on KCET’s Must See Movies, will moderate a Q&A with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, Christopher Walken, Dearbhla Malloy and writer/director John Patrick Shanley
The film screens on Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. PST. Only $10 per viewing link.
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The fears were justified: the accents are indeed bad. But that could be overlooked, perhaps even be endearing, with the requisite romcom chemistry or whimsy found between two emotionally repressed, isolated people learning to open up. Unfortunately, Shanley’s adaptation of his 2014 Broadway play Outside Mullingar has little to recommend besides some truly beautiful shots of Ireland’s County Mayo – it’s a visually verdant but emotionally flat film whose confusing friction between two miscast leads frustrates rather than engrosses.
....threatens to bequeath the farm to his capitalistic American nephew Adam (Jon Hamm, spared an accent), who flies into County Mayo and immediately flags Rosemary as its finest crop. Hamm plays the square-jawed and straightforward Yankee with all of Don Draper’s swagger and none of the charm, but he goes after what he wants (albeit in a flashy, finance bro sort of way), and that might be enough to win over the various people who’ve been holding their breath for Anthony to take action.
...One relatively subtle bit of funny business involving a white raincoat finds Shanley at his best, and allows Hamm to split the difference between his stiff exterior and goofball underbelly — it’s enough to appreciate the movie that “Wild Mountain Thyme” might have been had it settled on a more grounded tone and scaled the humor down to human levels.
The problems start with the casting....Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan are a decade younger, which immediately lowers the stakes, as does their movie-star prettiness. With that hair and those cheekbones, neither of them appears in danger of being left on the shelf anytime soon.
That skepticism about his diffident son and Anthony's seeming dedication to bachelorhood means Tony is thinking of selling the farm to his rich American nephew Adam, a character unseen in the play but brought to life here in an egregiously thankless role for Jon Hamm.
If only he weren’t so distracted by his father’s stubborn refusal to pass the land down to him in his will, and his threat to anoint a distant American cousin (Jon Hamm, Don Draper-breezy and blessedly accent-free) instead.
... By the time there are soaring pan flutes and kisses in the rain, you’ve either happily surrendered or slumped over, Walken-wasted. Either way somebody, or at least the whiskey, wins. Grade: B–
That said, motley accents are the least of this movie’s problems.
This is a “who is going to inherit the farm” story in which that question is abruptly resolved pretty much halfway through. It is also a romantic comedy/drama whose tone ping-pongs from grave to lyrical to absurdist willy-nilly, and hits all those registers at fortissimo volume.....
But the viewer’s patience may have been too harshly tested en route to this point to make much difference.
Wild Mountain Thyme” has a lot going for it, which makes it a shame that it’s not a wholly stronger film. That said, as a stress-free chance to take in the lush, gorgeously green Irish countryside, you could do worse.
...People also do many strange, showy things here that defy logic or payoff (and sometimes both) and make the film feel too quirky by half. Does Adam buy Anthony that silly white raincoat just to annoy him? Would Adam actually rent a Rolls-Royce upon landing in Ireland? Would Rosemary really fly to New York just for one night — and somehow stay awake for an evening performance of “Swan Lake”? Does Anthony honestly believe he’s a honeybee? (OK, he does.) It’s that kind of movie.
Dornan surprises with his loopy, awkward vulnerability (he’s light years away from his “50 Shades’” Christian Grey); Walken is terrific; and the ever-handsome Hamm brings his usual sidelong charm to a fairly mechanical part.
The much-derided accents are the least of the issues with Wild Mountain Thyme as whimsy and cliche overwhelm the more intriguing melancholy elements.
In the end, Wild Mountain Thyme fails to make the most of its cast or fairytale story and feels slightly misbegotten.
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.
Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, and John Patrick Shanley Talk WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, Writer/Director John Patrick Shanley Talk 'WILD MOUNTAIN THYME'
Prepare to be swept away for two glorious hours to an idyllic place that will make you forget the woes of the real world, and I believe a lot of us could use that right about now....
Hamm could have been the villain, even luring Rosemary to a first-ever trip to New York City. After all, is she going to wait forever for Anthony to discover that true love was right under his nose his whole life? Hamm never makes Adam a bit unlikable, and we are also rooting for him to find happiness too.
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The writing is wry and occasionally quite funny. It’s not unsurprising that it made for a good play. But on film it moves at a languorous pace. Like its characters, it’s not interested in getting anywhere anytime soon. And Adam’s introduction and arc (which includes Rosemary making an impulse day trip to New York) feels like a different movie entirely.
Enter Jon Hamm as the handsome and quite awful Adam, who arrives at the Reilly farm in a rented Rolls-Royce, gifts Anthony with an expensive designer white raincoat and immediately begins hitting on Rosemary, who is admittedly intrigued by this bounder who speaks his mind, unlike the ever-dawdling Anthony. (When Rosemary asks Adam why he rented such an ostentatious vehicle, Adam replies: “For show!” Ugh. Adam is the worst.)
Simmons: When you did this new movie, did you just want to go to Ireland for four months or did you like the script? What was it? 50/50?
Hamm: It wasn't 50/50. The Ireland stuff was a complete bonus. For me, it was working with John Patrick Shanley, who did Moonstruck and Joe Vs. The Volcano and all this other stuff. He's a hero of mine. And I had met him a couple of times. He's a quintessential New York guy, Irish Catholic, like the whole thing, wears his heart on his sleeve, he's an amazing writer, an amazing creative force and I loved his work and I'd seen the play that this movie was based on.
And in the play my character's just spoken about, he doesn't have any lines, he doesn't have any words. Essentially, I got to originate this character, which was kind of cool. And it was a straight offer, he was like, 'I really want you to play this part, I want you to come do this.'
And I was like, 'oh, and it's in Ireland? Ok, that sounds amazing!' And it was, it was amazing. I'd never been to Ireland. It definitely made me wanna go back. Nine of out ten people who watch the movie is like, 'I want to go to Ireland immediately', cos it really does represent, he represents... and it's getting kind of a bit of blowback, mostly from the Irish because they like nothing more than complaining about depictions of themselves. Kind of like the people from Boston.
Simmons: I was gonna say, Bostoners comes from Ireland.
Hamm: There's a lot of shared DNA in there. But then they begrudgingly love it so it comes full circle, it wouldn't be good unless they complained about it, that's my take.
But the Irish are like, 'you're telling this weird fairytale, not all of us are farmers, some of us work for Google' and you're like, 'fine, we're not telling the story about the Irish tech boom of the 90s, this is not what we're doing. We're telling a fable, it's a fable and it's a beautifully told, snark-free, it's just earnest, it's a love story.'
Like I said, that sensibility and that emotion and that tone is the perfect antidote for all of 2020 and everybody's angry and people want to burn statehouses, or you could watch a love story and chill for an hour and a half.
Simmons: The Irish people are like, 'you think you're better than me?' 'You're not better than me, who are you Jon Hamm?'
Simmons: What was your most fun night in Ireland?
Hamm: It really is, it sounds like a cliché or a stereotype, it's just, people are friendly, and especially in pubs when the music is playing.
That's what they're there for. They are there for the community experience. They're there for the thing. And again, it feels like it was 100 years ago because you're looking around or I'm remembering being in a place where there are 65 people singing, drinking, breathing in each others' faces. I hope we get to do that again soon.
It was so lovely. (John) Krasinski came over because Emily is his wife, brought the kids and the whole thing. And the producers would hang out and John would come and everyone was so nice, there was no Hollywood nonsense.
First of all, we were in a town of I dunno, a thousand people, Ball-in-awww (Ballina). It was this eensy little town. There was one pub and the owner was there bartending and his wife would come in. It was so friendly and family and lovely and welcoming and Irish.
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It’s an absolute escape from reality, with its beautiful scenery, modern-day fairytale, and, um, an ending that makes the word "twist" look mild. “Right now it’s needed,” says Jon Hamm over the phone. “We all need a little wide-eyed wonder.”
1. How did you prepare mentally for the role of playing Adam?
It was fairly easy to play a fish out of water when you’ve never been to Ireland and you’re thrust into it and all that it brings to the table, and everywhere you look is a brand-new thing and a rainbow and a thunderstorm and a cow and a sheep. It’s really spectacular. We shot in the west region of Ireland, County Mayo, and it was fairly easy to get into the role of an American who’s very wide-eyed.
2. What was your favorite memory from being on location?
All of it [laughs]. The town we were in, Ballina, is coincidentally where Joe Biden’s family is from, so they’re having a good year. The people were so friendly. There was a pub we’d go to and the owner would keep it open for us. It was like [what] you read about. It was absolutely beautiful and the weather was appropriately blustery for the season. My favorite part was everything.
3. What was your favorite scene to film?
There were a couple. The scenes with Emily [Blunt] I really enjoyed because they were longer and we were talking about stuff, but I think my favorite scene was probably the scene with me and Jamie [Dornan] and all of the cows, because those cows were real and they were real big. They kind of moved as a group, and you thought, “I hope I’m not in between those cows and whatever those cows want, because I wouldn’t be much more than a speed bump to those guys.”
4. What kind of fun did you get into with Emily and Jamie behind the scenes?
John Krasinski, Emily’s husband who I’ve known for a long time, came and we all got to go out and have dinner and see the sights. That was really fun. Then there’s this beautiful tradition of going to pubs in Ireland and they have traditional music and you can kind of lose yourself in it. It’s so funny to think back — we shot that in 2019, and it feels like we shot it in 1945 the way you look back and you’re like, “Oh my god, I was in a pub with 900 strangers swaying along to sad Irish songs. I wonder if we’ll ever get to do that again.” I think we will, and I’m certain that we’ll find some sense of normalcy soon, but in the meantime, you can virtually go to Ireland via Wild Mountain Thyme.
5. Did you have much interaction with Christoper Walken on set?
Not on set, but we did have a couple dinners together and I got to meet him and get to know him and he’s an absolutely lovely, lovely man. He’s a unique individual. He’d never been to Ireland either, and you could tell he was absolutely enjoying himself and completely tickled by the experience. That was an experience that we all felt.
6. You called yourself a fish out of water in the countryside. Obviously, in Mad Men, Don Draper was really familiar with this rural farm life. Where does your own experience and familiarity with it fall on that spectrum?
Well, I have family from southern Missouri and my uncles and cousins and things had farms. That’s what you did. You raised livestock or you raised crops and that was part of my growing up. I definitely knew my way around livestock and cow shit and all the other stuff. For a little kid, it’s fun. There’s tools, tractors, big animals, and ducks and all the other stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m a farmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been on a farm or two in my life.
7. One of Adam's lines in the film — “the kind of dreams kids have make adults miserable” — really sticks with you. How much do you believe in that?
[SPOILER ALERT] It’s the classic conundrum. How much of your dream life are you allowed to maintain, and how much of it is practical? I think you have to have a sense of childlike wonder in your existence, and that’s ultimately what Rosemary chooses, when she chooses Anthony. She loves that about him — his childlike wonder, and it’s what makes him unique and it’s what makes her love him. Adam has less of that, and Americans in general have less of that. They’re a little more practical and bottom-line everything.
But I do think there’s something beautiful and magical in not just this project but everything John [Patrick Shanley]’s written — if you look at Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano, you find these characters that are wild romantics. That sensibility is great, and especially right now it’s needed. We all need a little wide-eyed wonder.
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