How Did This Get Made? - Wild Mountain Thyme

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

The HDTGM crew dissect a film that's neither a rom nor a com—2020's Wild Mountain Thyme starring Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. They get into the bonkers honeybee reveal, the questionable Irish accents, and how the characters act like time travelers from the past. Plus, they ask important questions about Ireland like, "Is getting horny difficult when it's so cold and damp?" and "Are people allowed to go around two gates?"Go to www.hdtgm.com for tour dates, merch, and more.Follow Paul on Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/paulscheer/HDTGM Discord: discord.gg/hdtgmPaul’s Discord: https://discord.gg/paulscheerCheck out Paul and Rob Huebel live on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/friendzone) every Thursday 8-10pm ESTSubscribe to The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael here: listen.earwolf.com/deepdiveSubscribe to Unspooled with Paul and Amy Nicholson here: listen.earwolf.com/unspooledCheck out The Jane Club over at www.janeclub.comCheck out new HDTGM merch over at https://www.teepublic.com/stores/hdtgmWhere to Find Jason, June & Paul:@PaulScheer on Instagram & Twitter@Junediane on IG and @MsJuneDiane on TwitterJason is not on Twitter

He be a honeybee and she be a swan, and they must fall in love. That's right, we saw wild mountain time, so you know what that freckin' means. Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to How Did This Get Made. I'm your host, Tall John Shear, aka Paul Shear, and today we are talking about wild mountain time. Oh my gosh, if you liked Banshee's... Paul, I thought you said you were going to do the accent for the whole episode. Should I? I might. Right before we started, you said, watch this, and then I thought it was just going to be the whole app. Well, I was going to say, if you like Banshee's in a Sharon, stick with that one, because this movie, this is one of those really odd films.

I'll try to describe it. It is about two families of farmers that have star-crossed lovers. Oh geez, I don't even know how to fucking describe it. By the way, good luck. Yeah, I don't know. That's the thing, so I don't think that's what it's about, really, because I wouldn't say they're star-crossed. To be star-crossed, you'd have to have both lovers want to be with each other. Well, you said they're star-crossed lovers. You'd have to have both of them want to be with each other. And because of what's happening, they can't get to each other.

Circumstances, yeah. And that's not really what this movie is about. June, are you forgetting there are two gates between them? There are two gates between them. There's a movie wherein true love is separated by two gates. I would say two gates. Everybody's obsessed with it. And a lot of anxiety, because I want to go back to what you said, Jake.

The gates of the mind. Ooh, I like that. The gates of the mind. I believe that Jamie Dornan and Emily Blunt both are in love with each other, but they're not allowing... Well, at least Jamie Dornan is not allowing himself to admit it. That's why I'm going to go back to star-crossed lovers. His anxiety is his hurdle. And maybe his fact that, well, there's a lot. I mean, again, yeah.

Can I ask? You guys, we got to back all the way up. I know. All right, I know. But let me just say this. We can agree that they are farmers. They share a piece of land. It's kind of like Hatfields and McCoys.

Christopher Walken is Jamie Dornan's dad. We got to talk about Chris Walken. Well, the opening line. We got to talk about Walken's... We got to talk about Walken's Irish accent. We got to talk about everybody's Irish accent. We got to talk about... I thought for a good portion of the movie that the reveal was going to be that they were siblings.

And then the parents were trying to keep them apart because they were secretly siblings, because Christopher Walken seemed to be in love with Emily Blunt's mother? Or no. I thought that was his wife. His wife? Paul? Well, because she was reprimanding him like a wife. Yeah, but that's just Irish, babe. That's Irish stuff.

You got to get into that. That's Irish and what the Irish are. Bro, you got to get into the Irish. Well, look, as an Irish person, there was a lot of things here that I missed. I think that the movie was set off on the wrong foot simply by Christopher Walken's opening line. Welcome. Welcome to Ireland. My name's Tony Riley.

I'm dead. They say if an Irish man dies while he's telling the story, he can rest assured he'll be back. That kind of set the tone for what we were in store for. It's being narrated by a ghost with a terrible Irish accent. And we are... That kind of sets the uneasiness in which I watched every scene and was not quite sure what to expect.

I am going to say something or you guys, I thought for so long this movie takes place in... The current day of the movie is 1947. 1950? Maybe 1950. Yes, yes, yes, yes. When I realized and we go to... John Hamm shows up and I...

For me, it was when she said, I'll freeze my eggs. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute, can she do that? Yes. I haven't seen a cell phone. I haven't seen... Now I know they're on a farm, but they're eating stew. I haven't seen any semblance of modern amenities. None. Zero.

They don't even act like a cell phone is near to them. And this is a giant insult to Ireland. There isn't a tractor in sight. There's no industrial farm equipment. They're riding horses to and from events. It doesn't feel like this movie is in modern times. Yes, the most advanced piece of technology they have on these two farms is the metal detector. Which even seeing that, I was like, oh wow, I'm surprised they had that during this time.

They seem stymied by a Guinness that you can have at home. Oh, and by the way, who in Ireland is drinking bottle Guinness? First of all, they even comment on drinking bottle Guinness. It feels to me like they didn't get the can and like, oh, it's okay to drink the bottle. Then they pour, like they share Guinness in a whiskey glass. I don't even know. Can I ask you a question? Because this is a John Patrick Shanley production.

Yes. Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, who is a famous playwright. Amazing. Moonstruck and Joe vs. the Volcano. And Doubt. And a movie that we've done before, I believe January Man? Is it John Patrick Shanley? John Patrick Shanley is behind a lot of big Hollywood films. And I would say that he either hits a home run out of the park.

Yeah, it's really interesting. Or he hits one, a home run into the foul area. Like, they're going hard. They're never not trying. Is this a play? Yes, it was. It was a play. It was a play.

So that makes a little more sense to me. The just kind of sitting around at the table just long. Because I kept being like, why is this scene still going? Like, why is this still happening? The scene, the meat of this scene is now done. Let's move on. And there were moments. There were moments.

And it was so hard. I watched it with the subtitles on because not because I need, I couldn't understand what was happening. The accents were so heavy and wrong. And I think it was also like, had the accents been right, I wouldn't have needed subtitles. Like, I needed subtitles because they were such big swings in like a lucky charm direction that I could not understand.

Everyone's doing a slightly different one. There were moments where I'm like, oh, some of the writing is beautiful. Like, there are moments. I wanted to hear this monologue about Christopher Walken's wife and how he wasn't in love with her. And there were, there were points where he goes, I'm going to die now.

Like, he doesn't. Yes. But you can do that in a play. Yes. You can do that in a play and it can land. And so there were themes where I was like, oh, mental illness, being sort of paralyzed with, and not having any movement in your life and being in love

with a neighbor who, who's mentally ill and committing your life to this like hellscape, which is interesting in a product, in a play. Wow. As a film, it didn't work. Well, yeah. I need to also a thing where for me, I'm, I'm also, I guess willing to,

I suspect I would be willing to suspend disbelief more in a play to watch two 40 year olds struggle to live next door to each other and be in love in modern times and be unable to confront, speak to, elicit any kind of an emotional response or an adult conversation between them. It seemed to me that Jamie Dornan and, and Emily Blunt's characters were written as 20 year old.

Yes. When John Hamm kisses Emily Blunt, it felt like she'd never literally been kissed. I wrote early in my notes, are they both virgins at 40 years old? Yes, absolutely. She asks him if he's a virgin and not only are they both unable to speak to it, they both are acting like their

teenagers in a way that I was like, I don't understand. But then Jamie Dornan goes home. Yes. He goes home with that girl pretty willy like pretty easily or no, he doesn't go home with her. They go to the cemetery and she falls off a wall. Well, I mean, but I think that the idea was,

I think the idea was if she didn't fall off the wall, like I felt like that's where it was trying to go. And then then she did like Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. But don't you think that that was a deportation? He just looked casually in a way. Yikes. He looked at her and went yikes. Is she okay?

Because you guys, she shows up in that last pub scene when like all the ancestors come back to celebrate these natural she's there, which made me think like, did she die off that wall? And did she come from a while? Wouldn't it be great if everybody in the movie is a ghost except for the two of them and ham? Well, here, let's just go back a little bit.

And I want to address one thing first. When we talk about the accents being all willy-nilly, can we just address the fact that Jamie Dornan is from Belfast. That's where he grew up. Outside. He's never a problem with his accent. He, I would have been fine with him from the most part. Okay.

You know, same with her mother. I thought was terrific. And like the guy, the crazy guy that they all hate. Well, that's what's a while. There are clearly some Irish people in this movie. Who are a couple of like, yes, tried and true, you know, but then there are the other accents. And Christopher Walkham now was most difficult.

And then there's one of the most iconic hopeful cadences in the business. He's throwing a brogue on like, I held this watch up my ass. I knew how to do it. I would like, I held this watch up my arse for such a long time. We need to get Kevin Pollock in here. We need to get Pollock in here to do a Christopher on Irish Christopher Walkham. This is, this, it was so immediately. Because Christopher Walkham enters the, enters the movie in voiceover as the narrator.

The ghostly narrator. And I wrote down, is that an Irish accent in Christopher Walkham? It was so jarring. So weird. And again, it's another one of those things that maybe you would forgive a bad accent in a play or maybe you would forgive competing, competing Irish accents. These people are all supposed to be from the same small town in Ireland. They should all sound exactly the same and they do not.

Generations of people living in this town. I mean also, Walkham doesn't read to me as Irish farmer. Like, he looks to me like... Oh, no. It makes no sense in the Fat Boy Slim video. What is happening? Well, that's like, if you look at him, you could be like, and look, and maybe it's the, I think he's a great actor.

But when he's sitting in that chair in those suspenders in that white shirt, I'm like, you don't, you haven't worked a day in your life either. I will tell you, the character I was most excited about in this entire movie is John Hamm because when he came in not doing an accent, I was relieved. Oh, because you were like, thank God, there's an American here. I was relieved. And also, I found him to be truly the lightest. I was like, oh, I like his energy here.

I felt that ease when he was on screen. Well, you know what, you know what? Hamm's presence really helped ground the movie in a when. In a when, like the rest of the movie feels like it's supposed to be like an Irish folktale or something like it's the secret of Rowan Inish or something like that. What is the secret? By the way, great movie. But what is the secret?

Faith in bigora. Oh, okay, you know. But what is the fairy tale? Like that's the thing I can't quite figure it out because it has a fairy tale energy. But what is the fairy tale? But there but here's the thing in a like I should have loved this movie. This should this is a fastball straight down the middle for me. A love story will like they will they won't be fated to be together.

True love from childhood. I like this is the kind of stuff I love. But this was they have too much opportunity. Neither of them is in love with someone else. Neither of them is betrothed to someone else. Neither of them has circumstances that mean they have to be apart. Neither. That's because I kept being like, oh, they're in love.

But the reveal is going to be that they're siblings. They didn't know it. And their parents are actively keeping them apart. That's the other thing. And that was like. That's what was so. I mean, like is this a story about love or land? It didn't even seem like the land played a part of it.

That's a great question. I mean, here's the thing. Like I think ultimately. Why didn't Christopher Walken want to give him the land? Why did he want to or why did he not want to know? Why did he? Why did he not want to? Because he thought he was saying because he thought he was.

He seems to be saying he's not going to get married. He's insane. And also he's not that he, Christopher Walken thinks that there's rumors that he's talking at donkeys and we see him talking to himself on the boat. He thinks he's also just not there and that he won't have that, that, that his, you know, his family name will end there with him. And I think he has good reason to.

What's really hard. He does it. Well, here's what I think. I think he does and he doesn't because Jamie Dornan. Yes. Is exhibiting some behavior that is a little odd. But otherwise, otherwise he seems absolutely capable. He seems capable of taking care of the land.

He's doing the entire job. Like he's not, he's not fucking off. He's not like, I haven't seen him in days. He doesn't do a good job. Tony Christopher Walken is nervous that Anthony might kill himself because he had an uncle who killed himself. Wait, what? There is a line in that big room scene where they kind of allude to

he's off. I don't want to give it to him because of that. I don't know if the farm comes to me. I don't see a clear path. From where to where? From me to you. Stop. It has to be said, you're more Kelly than Riley.

It's true. You're a Kelly in the face. In my face. He likes the fish. That's the Kelly's. It's well known. John Kelly. Donny, he was a fish.

My name is Riley. I'm a Riley. No, you're a Kelly. You take after John Kelly and that man was mad as the full moon. That line is kind of glossed over. It's not like I need to help my son. It's simply like I need to protect the farm. That's what I couldn't figure out because that's also what made me

try and figure out, wait a minute, is Jamie Dornan, not his son. And that's why he's not giving him the land or that he's trying to prevent some secret from being revealed. And then at the end, he's just like, you know what, John, I can't give you the land. I got to give it to my son. I was like, then why have we been hailing this whole movie that you're not giving it to him?

Well, all of this stuff I could have forgiven had I really understood the love story. One of the first scenes where she's got her horse and he's walking by and then he says something about the fields are green and they're going to stay green or whatever he said. And then he walks away. He's like, I got to go. And she repeats that line looking out after him.

I laughed hysterically because I thought, oh, there's, I thought she was making fun of him for good reason. You too. It was, there's no, there was no, now I thought they played the scene beautifully when they got together at the end and her forcing him to open up and love her. I did, I loved that, but when he says, I think I'm a bee, you know, that's not, that doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue.

And I believed him. Now, looking back though at the other scenes in the movie, when he's on the boat flailing about with the ore and also screaming things. Did he think he was a bee in those moments? Yeah. And remember when he's a little boy, he's smelling the flower. I remember that. But he is also talking and standing and having conversations.

Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure. I mean, and again, I'm not sure, but did you guys feel like the whole movie, Jamie Dornan was sitting on a secret, an unexplained secret? This Honey Bee reveal not only didn't answer any questions I had, but I didn't know I was supposed to be waiting for this delivery of information. It felt like the movie was all hinged on this, this, this incredibly potent reveal that he was going to tell her his big secret and she's going to elicit it out of him.

And, and then they could be together or not or whatever. And I, and he said it. And I was like, wait, have I been, have I been supposed to be tracking that he thinks he's a bee? Hold on. What's going on? Let's take a listen to that. Time is running out.

Now you tell me your secret, Anthony. I told Fiona and she ran like Satan. I'm off kilter. It doesn't matter how. Is it because you hate people? No, I don't hate no one. You can't shock me. I have thought of everything.

I've made my peace with it. Okay. I believe that I'm a Honey Bee. Say that again. I believe that I'm a Honey Bee. I'll get the car. Don't believe it. You don't think you're a Honey Bee.

You're having me on. You do? How long? I don't know. I, I think that I'm a Honey Bee. I always have. You are Anthony Riley. Whatever I am, God knows me.

Is this why you never told me I was beautiful? Well, that's in the nearness of your farm to mine and it's true, bees don't like smoke. Let me drive. No. Slow down. I don't care if you think you're a bee, Anthony. You think you're a bee.

I mean, you, you think you're a bee. You think you're a bee. You think you're a bee. There is something weird about that because, and this is what I, I'm all for, give me the fairy tale, but does he feel like a bee or is he a bee? And that is, that's, that isn't it. I want to understand that because if he feels like a bee,

what does that even mean? And if he is actually a bee, he could hurt people. He says, and I quote, I believe that I'm a honey bee. I believe that I'm a honey bee. So if you are a bee and you sting somebody like, if you kiss somebody as a bee, this is what I'll say. If you sting somebody as a bee, don't you die? Doesn't, don't bees die when they sting you?

Yes. Yes, they do. After they sting you, they die. Yes. So maybe he believes I am like a honey bee when I would, to kiss you, I will, I will fall apart. I will die. I will, I don't know. Then I don't know because when he's a little kid,

he's running around sticking his nose in flowers like a bee. So I think he's like, he's actually a real bee. I think he thinks he's a real bee. Like the, what, what this movie, one of the central failings inside this movie is that I believe it's supposed to succeed in a magical realism way. Like in a Irish folk tale way. Again, I will point to the John Sayles movie,

the secret of Rowan and Ishe, which is fantastic, that I feel like treats material that is like this much better in its kind of fairy tale, folk tale kind of telling. I believe there's supposed to be some sort of like folk tale element to this that we buy into, that we, we, we allow for him to think he's a bee, or we allow for him, these people to be connected to nature and animals and represent all of this stuff.

But this movie is not doing it successfully, even remotely. So much so that when he said he was a honey bee at the end, I was like, what, that is news to me. And it makes no sense. So unless he literally turns into a bee and flies away right now, I wish he hadn't said that. Well, at one point there was that shot,

there was that big sort of expensive shot where she was running out of the house and I thought she was, I thought she was, I thought she was flying. That's what I thought too. That's what it is. That's what it looks like. When she runs out of the house, she dances, when she's doing her swan dance, then she,

that's what I'm saying about magical realism. The movie wants to have it, but doesn't. So she's dancing in front of the house, swan lake is playing in the background, then she runs and takes off. Her character's point of view takes off as a drone shot and she flies over the Irish countryside and it segues into an airplane flying over the Atlantic to New York City.

I don't often do this because I think it, I think it takes away from what we do here, but I will describe to you or tell you, but I will tell you what John Patrick Shanley said. When asked, is he a bee or does he just, you know, is that something dramatic? John Patrick Shanley said, well, we all believe we're something we're not, right?

Was there a follow-up question? John, what do you think you are? That just begs the immediate follow-up. Like, and I understand what he's saying. We all view ourselves differently, but that's a, that's a big one. Well, I overall, and this is why I did connect to that last scene,

because I thought what she was saying, I thought, I thought what he was saying was, I'm take away, replace, I'm a honeybee with the words, I'm mentally ill. Because I think that's what he was trying to say to her. And I think she was saying to him, and that's okay. And we all are on some level.

I think you're right. Okay, so like that... Well, let me, I think you're right, but I also think the movie's wanting to have it both ways. I think he's also saying, I think I'm a honeybee. I don't think he's just saying that as a stand-in for mental illness.

I think, I do think the movie wants you to believe he thinks he's a honeybee, if that makes sense. It does not. It does not. Unsuccessfully. But what does a honeybee do? All right, if I think,

going back to my great example, did he views himself as a widower? He has to run this prod of land, he can't fall in love, he's had his time. There's something I can understand, but what about, what is it? A honeybee is even a hard thing to wrap your head around

in the idea of what does that even represent? What does a honeybee represent? I don't know. What is a honeybee's personality? I mean, I saw the bee movie and it didn't help. Oh, brother. Oh, boy. Yeah, I don't think it's there.

I think if we try to explore the swans and the bees, we're gonna, and the horse is like, we're gonna come up short, because I don't think that the movie itself goes. Oh, guys, here we go. Male honeybees hang around the hive, and they're eager to take on certain jobs

other than their comrades. Well, now I remember when her father calls her queen in the beginning of the movie. And here's the other part of it. Their only role is to mate with a maiden queen. And be workers, right? Because they always work the, they are the workers. So is this, is the whole thing like she's the queen bee

and he's the worker bee? Okay, by the way, okay. But then why make her also a swan? Why make the wild horse at all a thing? Why make all of these animals, the movie is chock full of animals. The dog, the goats, or the lambs. There's so many animals that I just,

I genuinely started to be like, I don't know what story you're telling me. Like, watch The Secret of Kells or Wolf Walkers. Like these, again, these animated Irish stories that are so steeped in Irish folklore and mythology. Like, why not, why not use some of that? Like, it's like hubris, I feel like, to be like, no, no, I'll tell an Irish story.

But if she, and also if she's a swan, and the whole story of the white swan is about transformation, she doesn't transform, but I guess she rubs her swan off on his bee, because she's transforming him, I get. Kapal, that's filthy. That's really disgusting. She rubs her swan off on his bee, Jesus Christ.

I'm just trying to understand here, because I am trying to understand what these characters are, what the apex is. Like, what are, like, what? Great, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But by the way, it does make sense why he was drinking an orange blossom drink

and not a Guinness at the bar, because a bee would be attracted to like, you know, an Irish smell. A flower. A flower. But then doesn't he tell that woman that he's got like a tinny brain? Or what does he tell that woman?

Yeah, what was that? Did he whisper to her that he's a bee? I wonder if he did actually, now that I'm looking back on it. I think he did. He said, like, she says I supple the priest, and he says I have a tinny-ness in my brain, right? Here.

I have a tiny, a tiny-ness in my brain. A tinny-ness. What? They kiss. What are you talking about? That's it? I have a tiny, tinny-ness in my brain.

That is not helpful. Why does John Hamm need him to find him a wife? Who knows? Because that's the other thing. I thought John Hamm was trying to pull a fast one and still get the land. Because again, I thought a lot of this movie was about a land in Ireland.

I was like, John Hamm, how many acres? What is the land? Here's my question. I thought maybe the reason why he wanted to get married was because that was really important to his uncle, that the land get passed along. Or because- Because children and it's-

But if he marries her, he gets both pieces of land. That's what I thought he was trying to do. I thought Hamm was trying to marry Emily Blunt so that he could have, potentially, both plots of land, thus erasing the true blight of the two gates. Can someone draw a picture of those gates for me and the land? I wish I could understand.

Yeah. What is the deal? I mean, you want to pass through them a number of times. So basically, I mean, this is- It doesn't really matter, but at some point, Christopher Walken has that monologue about how he initially didn't love his wife and then he was struck dumb with love for her.

And he sold a strip of land between their two properties, providing a piece of land between- He sold a piece of the land that he owned to the neighbor, who is Emily Blunt's father, which meant that a strip of land bisected their two properties. Like, I still don't understand

who owns the land between the two gates. Emily Blunt does. Emily Blunt herself does. And why not just have one gate? Because you have to pass through one of their land into, like, an inter- Into a middle ground. Like a neutral spot.

Like a DMZ. And then you have to enter the other person's land. So you're exiting and entering. And you can't just go around those gates. Not in Ireland. I mean, I don't know. It's too large. This is Ireland, I don't know.

I mean, by the way, just so you guys know, this movie does take place in Ireland. I know it's very subtle that pan flutes pretty much score every moment. The music is aggressive. How many more fucking landscape scenes do we got to see? I get it, I get it. The music is aggressive.

The green fields are aggressive. The pub is aggressive. The Guinness is aggressive. The accents are aggressive. The music is also trying to tell me that this is a movie that I don't think I'm watching. The music is, the music feels like it's from Willow. Or so the music feels like it's from,

like it doesn't feel like it's from a contemporary rom-com, which is, I believe, what this is sort of. Let me just say one other thing here. Can I just say one thing that just made blow your mind? Not a rom-com, but a... It's neither a rom nor a com. No, it's sort of a... What is it?

It's a moment. It's a moment, it's a cup of tea. It's a vibe, I guess. It's a vibe. Here's what I'll say. It's a vibe. Can I just ask you a question? It's a meaty stew.

Very quickly, when I say Silicon Valley, what does that bring up to you in Silicon Valley? Just roughly. Like, what goes on in Silicon Valley? Tech. Startup boom. Tech, right? Tech, yeah.

Right, okay, great. That's all I need to know. So would it surprise you that Ireland is the Silicon Valley of Europe? This movie takes place in 2019, and there is not any. Like, they've pushed them backwards into like... Yes. Like, Ireland is... It feels like it's from the 1800s.

Wait, this movie takes place in 2019. Yes. Yes. So I'm saying that this movie... Nobody uses a cell phone. Ireland uses technically... There's no radio. Is the Silicon...

The Silicon Valley of Europe, and these people are so disconnected that when they see a fancy car, they should have been shocked at the airport. Okay. Honestly, she should have... Not only a fancy car... Flying crow. But here's the crazy thing. That Rolls Royce is not a, like, 2019 Rolls Royce.

No. But that is in and of itself a model of car that anybody who's seen a magazine would have seen a picture of a Roll... Like, you don't even... I mean, like, they were acting as if it was... The movie is pretending as if everybody in it time-traveled from 80 years ago to 2019. I wonder, I would love to have a real Irish person on this podcast. Oh, they hate it.

No, they've ripped it apart. Oh, sure. I've saved some of that reaction for the end. The Irish hate this movie for many, many reasons. Wow. And I think... They should. Actants besides.

And John Patrick Shanley said, you can never impress. You can never impress the Irish. They're always going to have a problem. That was his response to that. This movie feels as though it's like the Irish are all magical, old-timey creatures. Like, they don't exist in modernity is what the movie is. But when she puts on that wedding dress, it looks like something from the 1920s rather than probably the 1970s, 1980s when her mom probably did get, you know, married, right?

For example, when she goes to New York for one day, she flies to New York for one day to see the ballet, she's wearing modern clothes and looks great. To me, I feel like that's a reshoot day. What, so she has these clothes, I understand why she of course doesn't wear them on the farm, but why when she's on the farm does she act like the world of these clothes doesn't exist? I just pulled up a picture of an Irish farmer, a modern-day Irish farmer, who likes... That's interesting.

Yeah, he's got a watch on, he's got a fleece vest. Jamie Dornan is also too much of a hunk, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the same thing. He's so beautiful, both he and Emily Blunt are both so beautiful and so adult that I did not understand, nor did it make any sense that they didn't know that they were supposed to be kissing. I know, I know, I know, I know. Like, no, if these two beautiful people are living next door to each other for 40 years,

and they don't know they're supposed to be making out, no, I don't buy it. Well, they've never seen a movie or seen a TV show. They don't know, I guess that's it. Maybe you wouldn't know. Maybe you wouldn't know. I mean, do you think that Emily Blunt... When John Hamm kisses Emily Blunt in New York, she's like, oh no, why'd you go and do that? Like, what?

Yeah. As if that's the... Like, mustn't she want to kiss... mustn't this movie exist in a world in which these 40-year-olds have never been horny? What's going on? No. Well, I don't know. I mean, I do think that it's so in Ireland, what's interesting is that it is so damp and cold,

that I think it's hard to get, you know, a vibe going. It's hard to get horny? You think it's hard to get... Oh boy, the Irish listeners... I know, they're going to be upset. But do you get horny in Ireland? I'm just going to say, it did not look like there was any central heating in any of those homes. Okay, people looked cold.

People did not take off, like, outdoor layers when they walked inside. It is hard. They also are happy to be in the rain. They stand in the rain all the time. All the time. I was like, you're going to get sick. How horny could you possibly be if you're wet and your feet are damp? Like, I...

I think you could still get pretty horny. I mean, here's the thing. I don't know. He's horny enough not to be aggressively offended when called gay. He was like, what? He jumped up. Like, he was... He jumped up.

The most energy I've seen from this man was to question his masculinity, which is never on display at any other point except for that, which made me go, does he protest too much? Because now is that part of it? Because it's also just... I mean, again, if it's 2019, maybe we're a little bit more open. Maybe, you know, we don't make these people like... Like, they, again, are acting out this... That's what I felt like.

I didn't understand what... I didn't understand whose movie this was. I didn't understand who felt how about whom. Like, none of it... Like, the idea is this olden days, is this modern times. I kept writing things like, are the book characters young or the play, I guess, is what it was. Like, is this a land story or a love story? And then I just wrote, John Hamm is here. By the way, John Hamm...

Like, what does John Hamm find appealing about Emily Blunt? Because it doesn't seem like they are connecting that much. I felt like he was a villain. I mean, I thought he was going to be a villain. John Hamm is so easy with her that I'm like, oh, I guess he does find her charming. But she's not giving him anything charming to connect to. But he's like, he's working it so smooth that I was like, okay, I'll buy it. Although there's nothing on the page. I was just hiding who was there.

Me too. Thrilled. Yes, thrilled. But there was so little between them that I felt like... Again, I'm just filling in the blanks for the movie because I was like, what's the purpose of John Hamm's cousin? If not to be the Craven American land obsessed cash grab, I'm here to get the land. I'm here to take the money. I was like, okay, so he's our villain.

So if he's not going to inherit this land, he's going to marry Emily Blunt and take her land. He wants to be a landowner and whatever. That's got to be it, right? But no, he just falls in love with the woman on the plane and he gets his love story too. So I was like, is this all about love stories? Is everybody here in love? And that's what the movie's been about? I do think that with different types, this would be a different movie.

If these were two people who are a little bit older and actually much less attractive, I think it would make more sense. Well, I would only disagree in the sense that I think less attractive and younger would make sense to me. It would make more sense to me if they were in the period of life where you either choose to settle down or you don't. I don't think you can be young in Ireland. But that's my point. I think even if you got two 24-year-olds who were Irish, they would still look like 46-year-old farmers. Get people that look like they're working this land. And because everybody is talking about leaving Ireland and it seems to be like the thing, like all the young people leave,

at one point I did think maybe there's not a lot of other people of their age, which did explain to me why they could be so cut off from other people. Because of the gates. The gates are complicated to get through. If you were a young person, no young person is going to go through two gates. I mean, that's just a fact. I mean, that's social media, that's TikTok, that's all that stuff. How far is it to get to Dublin and go out for a night on the town? By the way, to get to that airport without a problem, they're in and out. Let me put you to this way.

The events of this movie take place during the exact same period of time that we are alive and the leads are essentially your age. And they seem to have never seen any of the movies or TV shows that you've seen. They haven't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Home Alone. They haven't seen When Harry Met Sally. They have no frame of reference for modernity. They would much rather talk about the crows and the storms. I want to go back to this opening. Doesn't Jamie Dornan in the first scene say,

Mother Nature, why did you make me this way? Or something like that? Why am I so, yeah, or something like that? That's during the Christopher Walken voiceover. That's when he's a little boy. He says that when he's a little boy. So is he saying that because he knows he's a bee there? Yes, because that's basically his saying, why have you made... But we don't know that until the end of the movie.

Right. The context clues is that he's sniffing pollen. I also think, though, I can imagine a world in which this is a play and you're on stage just in the, you know, Muldoonie room and the Riley room and the pub and there's three sets and then there's the field and we never go to New York. John Hamm's character is only spoken of. He's never... He's never seen him. Okay, so like I can see it being a working much better.

Okay, so I'm just right about the play. They say in the play it's very clear that Anthony hates farming and that's why his father doesn't want to leave it to him. That's what I couldn't... He seemed to want to be there. He seemed to want to farm. I mean, it's not like he was full of joy or anything, but it was conveyed to me through both his performance and what I felt like the film was trying to tell me

he was like crestfallen and heartbroken to find out he was not being left to the farm. You know, that was upsetting news to him. Here's a question. Why did John Hamm bring him that white coat? Unclear. I had that question too. Well, I think it was part of him trying to say like,

hey, I'm from a modern world. Take my modern thing. Raincoat? Well, yes, because he's like it's white. And I think his whole thing was like, no. Also, Jamie Dornan opens the raincoat while wearing a raincoat. He's wearing a raincoat and opens what is arguably not... He's wearing like a slicker. He's wearing like a rubberized raincoat for the farm

and Hamm gets him like a proper like, you know, about town, like a Macintosh, like a nice looking, stylish raincoat. The Jamie Dornan immediately starts wearing just on the farm. But I guess like my idea is like, I am not made for modern times. I can't wear your modern raincoat. Like you can't bring... Like even though the world is in 2019, I'm still in the past. Like I am trapped here.

Give me that. Give me that. Give me a character who's like obsessed with old stuff, who's like, they made it better when. I don't want a modern tractor or a modern raincoat. I don't want a modern tractor or a modern irrigation system. It was better when X, like give me a character. I don't know what any single character in this movie wants. Period.

I don't know what they want. And as a result, it's impossible to watch the movie because their wants are all over the place. Christopher Walken doesn't want to give the farm to his son. Then he does. Christopher Walken didn't love his wife and then he did. Christopher Walken did love Emily Blunt's mother, but he also loved his wife.

Like everybody wants this, but they also want that, but they all... Like I was like, what the fuck is this movie? Well, look, maybe we just aren't that smart because obviously we have opinions about this. We have thoughts about it, but there are people out there with a different opinion, a different thought.

It is now time for second opinions. So there are a lot of people out there that love Wild Mountain Time. The average rating is four out of five. 53% of people give this a five-star review on Amazon. People say things like, this movie has soul. If you don't understand the farming life of the UK, you probably won't understand this movie. Five stars.

Then there's somebody who looks at it, maybe like Betsy C, who says, on one hand, there's just too many uses of the Lord's name in vain for me, but there also seems to be something repugnant in every movie made nowadays. So you just have to eat the whole sandwich as it is or pass it up.

And this is such a moving story and enjoyable. So five stars. And then many people say you have to watch it over and over again to truly understand what this movie is. You know, there's stories about from SF Stone says, my dad brings us to his church group and it makes people watch it with him. Sterling C writes, who cares about the accent nonsense?

Good grief. Who in the world cares? If you watch it for dialect nuances, then you get a bigger issues to deal with. All right. Second, this is a film you really have to watch twice in order to catch all the gem littered dialogue. This is adapted from a play.

It is about the dialogue and it is rich and watching it twice. You better catch the visual references embedded throughout that you missed the first time. Shanley knows how to tell a story and tug at both the heart and the mind and he's accomplished that heritage, history, the land, love, and how bittersweet and strange this enterprise called life is. Shanley is never one to shy away from the vicissitudes of life.

And this one clearly hits those notes just like the traditional tune it's named after. Anyway, you can't go wrong watching this. It's delightful. Have some tissues ready for the final scene, though, because it will get you if you've been paying attention to the story instead of, well, you know, on final word, this film is for dying breed of folks who recognize that literacy

and thoughtfulness still matters. Metaphors, the secrets, for example, are not literal, but figurative of something grander, indications of something else. It used to be called art. But now it seems to conjure up expletives and insults. This film speaks to something bigger about life in a way that's unique and artful.

It's very much like Joe versus the Volcano meets pride and prejudice. The first edition, its personality and tone, no violence except the crows, no clothing is removed, no nasty behavior is displayed except for the Irish expletives using the Lord's name in vain. The only complaint I have is the sound seem very low and mushy in the indoor scenes, but that's it. Five stars.

Five stars. Holy shit, that's an incredible final outline. Wow, wow, what an impassioned, it used to be called art, that's amazing. But I do think this could have been better if Deadpool was in it. Yeah, well, are they trying to hide that one of them is superior? I mean, would you recommend it? And this is the question because...

No, no, no. No, in its place, I know I've brought it up numerous times, but just because it's such a tiny movie, do yourself a favor and watch The Secret of Rowan Inish, the John Sayles movie. Incredible, beautiful, heartbreaking Irish folktale and Secret of Kells and all those, the animation that's coming up. The banshees of Inish Aaron is awesome.

By the way, it's so funny, I read a review of that where someone's like, I love this movie and did not realize it didn't take place in present day until somebody told me, because I do think that people do view Ireland in this way of being very much stuck in the past. But there is this, I think, this beautiful idea of being stuck in a place, not having places to go.

There are similar themes, I think, between those two films. But this was a tough one because I think they added too much. Listen, I didn't need them to be like, I got an email, I have a text, I'm listening to a podcast. Like, I get it, it's supposed to have like a magical fairy tale, folktale kind of vibe to it. I just don't think this succeeded in transporting me there. Yeah, it was a tough watch.

It was a tough watch and I think, you know, it's hard because there are so many people on screen who are so watchable and so beautiful to look at. But even within that, it was just, you are left just trying to make sense of it. And you come up with very little. Yeah, you know, I just was like, throughout the movie, that's the other thing is, like, the movie is really,

ultimately about Will They Won't They, Jamie Dornan, Emily Blunt. That's what it boils down to is Will They Won't They. And they are given so many opportunities, both through proximity and what we, as the audience, know as they are each interested in the other. So we're not being told they can't. We're not being told they are apart.

We're not being told one doesn't believe in the other or one doesn't love the other. They are both demonstrably in love with each other. They're constantly together. They're 40 years old and nobody wants, they're gorgeous. And nobody's like, come on, we got to make out. Or, I guess this gets back to, again, please, if you're Irish, let us know.

Do you get horny? We do need to know. Or is it just too damp? It's too, yeah, it's like your bones are cold. Like, everything's cold. Oh, if you're Irish, please contact us if you've got them cold bones. Cold bones so you can't get a real bone. That's it.

Just imagine, imagine your feet are always cold and your feet might be a little wet, too. Not to get too descriptive, but I'm going to say, if your body is that cold, would you really want to, you know... Take off your clothes. I would. And put something inside of you that's that cold, too? That's how you warm up. That's how you warm up.

What are you talking? Now I'm worried about the two of you. That's way too cold. Oh, my gosh. I will say that I agree with you. Across the board, I think everyone is committed. I don't feel like anything is going badly. It just feels like there are some questions

that make for, for me anyway, an unsatisfying watch. Maybe I have to go back and watch it three or four times to get as impassioned as these reviewers got. Yeah, all right. And change the sound into some of those indoor scenes. Sounds like a machine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, gosh.

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