84 Charing Cross Road

Here is a movie for book lovers. If slow pace bothers you, stay away, because there is little action. The pleasures here—and for me and Lee, they are considerable—are in the acting, the writing, and the restraint. It is based on a real story that was told in a book and a play. Anne Bancroft is a rather eccentric woman living in New York, who had need for some books that are hard to find in the US. She strikes up a long-distance relationship with Anthony Hopkins, proprietor of a small bookstore in London. Over the years the relationship grows. It is set recently post-WWII, and trans-Atlantic travel was not cheap nor common yet. You sense early on that they will never meet. But maybe meeting is overrated. The long exchange of letters and the growing respect and affection seem to me to be enough.