Movies: Dark River (2017) and Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

What these two movies share: Images of the beautiful English countryside, farms, farm animals, rain, two people who don't communicate well and don't know how to deal with their emotions in a healthy way. They are two very different movies though. Dark River being a sad drama and Wild Mountain Thyme a funny romance. 

Dark River, 2018 ***

A sad story about a woman who returns to her family farm after running away from the man then the memories of her father‘s abuse. She struggles with her brother for control of the farm, but no one wins. Starring Ruth Wilson who I recognize from so many things, especially Luther and Jayne Eyre, and Mark Stanley from many things, too, especially Game of Thrones and Sanditon, and only in flashback scenes as the abusive father, is Sean Bean, also of Game of Thrones fame. Trigger warnings: Sexual abuse and sheep shearing, which can be scary to some. Don't judge. I watched this on Amazon Prime. 

Wild Mountain Thyme (2020) **** kept popping up in different algorithms and lists because I clearly love  romance movies and British shows. Yes, I do know this movie is set in Ireland. So there. I finally watched it and was so anxious with the characters acting out in such a lovely way the stereotypical act of hiding emotions of human connection while overly expressing emotions that cause or maintain rifts that is soooo associated with British (and Irish) people. But this was as much heartwarming as it was heart-wrenching. I can watch Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan over and over in this movie. Surprisingly, Christopher Walken and John Hamm show up as an excellent and entertaining supporting cast. 

Reviewer Christie Lemire sums this movie up well:

"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 the fact that they’re clearly meant for one another. Besides knowing everything about each other, sharing decades of history and enjoying a lively chemistry, they’re the only single, gorgeous people of their age around. And so we must wait 102 minutes for them to acknowledge they’ve secretly been in love with each other all this time."

Trigger warnings: Christopher Walken being himself while pretending to have an Irish accent. 

I watched this on Hoopla. 

Photo by TimHill