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V-necks, cobbles and bunting: why British film is stuck in the 1940s

This week’s new release, The Bookshop, is the latest in a glut of nostalgic movies centred on Britain in the period in and around the second world war

From today, you can pop into The Bookshop, a new period drama adaptation of the Penelope Fitzgerald novel. While you are browsing, you can get to know a courageous widow (Emily Mortimer), a melancholy recluse (Bill Nighy) and a snobbish busybody (Patricia Clarkson), all of whom live in a coastal town in 1959. The only snag is that you may feel as if you have visited this particular shop already. You may get a frisson of deja vu from the china teacups and the crystal champagne glasses; the ankle-length skirts and the three-piece suits; the cobbled streets and the unspoilt woods; and all the other signs that the UK film industry’s latest obsession is Britain as it was a few decades ago.

British films have always idealised our great nation’s glorious past, of course, especially when that past is embodied by Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, Mr Darcy, or Helena Bonham Carter wearing a bustle, but never before have so many films, released over such a short time, targeted such a specific period of our history: the outer rings are the 1920s to the 1960s, and the 1940s are the bullseye.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KssQ8e
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