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Absolutely brilliant

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is a story about the long relationship between the New York writer and bibliophile, Helen Hanff and Frank Doel, a British bookseller whose shop is located at 84 Charing Cross Road in London. It is delicious to watch these two accomplished actors (Anne Bancroft and Sir Anthony Hopkins respectively) take us through the association between two people who are rather different in nature, but who share a love of books and, eventually via a two decade correspondence, share the great events which are a part of their daily lives. The lasting and extraordinary friendship between Frank and Helen is brought to life as these two great actors ply their craft in a way that teaches us much about life, caring and love, specifically, the love of books. We learn that books reveal much about the world and those who inhabit it through their contents; and that books can enrich lives during the scarcity suffered in a world war and bring sanity and moral commitment during the social upheaval of the sixties.The performances in this gem of a movie are amazing, with the two lead actors absolutely perfect in their roles and with strong performances from the various supporting actors, including Judi Dench in the role of Frank Doel's wife. The movie is at times hilarious, at times thought-provoking, and always heartwarming. I have to confess I teared up just a bit at the end. If you like plays, literary references, historical period pieces and enjoy detail and ambiance, you will like this movie. If you like Masterpiece Theatre you will like it. If you like biographies you will probably like it. I could watch it just for the historical detail. I definitely recommend it.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Based on the 1981 play by James Roose-Evans which was itself based on the 1970 memoir by Helene Hanff, this is a superb tale of the friendship that arose out of a mutual love of books. The film concerns the almost 20 year correspondence between Hanff, a New York-based lover of English literature, and the staff of the antiquarian bookshop Marks & Co. in London, in particular its chief buyer Frank Doel. Although it began as a purely professional arrangement, the correspondence eventually blossomed into a very close friendship between Hanff and Doel, even though they never actually met in person. Hanff also enjoyed long distance friendships with the rest of the staff but none of them were on the same level as that which she shared with Doel. The film does not have a plot per se, being primarily concerned with its characters and the small details of their lives as opposed to the major events thereof. In order for such films to work, the writing has to be very sharp and, perhaps even more importantly, the characters in question have to compelling and/or sympathetic. To that end, I am glad to say that I found this film to be fascinating, engrossing and at times very moving. It has a perfect script by Hugh Whitemore who, by relying on the source material, was able to paint a vivid and authentic portrait of the two central characters. The film is very well directed by the prolific theatre director David Jones, who is able to very effectively contrast the various locales of London and New York. In this sense, the direction goes hand in hand with the script, which nice explores the difference between British and American cultures.The film stars Anne Bancroft in a wonderful performance as Hanff, an initially fairly impoverished script reader living in a small apartment in Manhattan who is attempting to further her education through the acquisition of out of print editions of British classics as well as more obscure books. One that sparked my interest in particular was The Idea of a University by Cardinal John Henry Newman. Cardinal Newman founded the Catholic University of Ireland, the predecessor of my alma mater University College Dublin. Hanff is equipped with an occasionally caustic wit but she is a lovely person who cares about others deeply. She has a tendency to tease the staff at Marks & Co. when they are not very prompt in fulfilling one of their orders but she regularly sends them gift packages of items such as meat and eggs, which were still rationed in Britain when the correspondence began in 1949, in gratitude for all of their efforts. It is a very kind gesture that goes above and beyond the call of duty. Hanff eventually gets a job as a scriptwriter for "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" and receives a salary of $200 per episode, which is increased to $250 after a while. She had intended to use this money to travel to London for the Queen's coronation in 1953 but the fact that she requires extensive and expensive dental work put paid to that idea. She finally makes it to London in 1971, by which time Marks & Co. has closed down.Bancroft's "Young Winston" and "The Elephant Man" co-star Anthony Hopkins is excellent as Doel, who grows equally fond of Hanff over the course of two decades. Taking them at face value, they would seem to have little in common as he is a somewhat shy, naturally quiet and reserved man whereas she is a live-wire. Their friendship grows out of their shared love of books but it is not confined to that as their letters cover a wide variety of topics from Yorkshire Pudding to his love for Tottenham Hotspur and hers for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He becomes more open in his writing and does not hesitate to tell about his wife Nora and their daughters Sheila and Mary. Over time, they become best friends and each is perhaps the greatest friend that the other ever had. When Doel finds out that she is not coming over in 1953, he is quietly devastated as he had longed to meet her. In January 1969, Hanff discovers that Doel, whom she nicknamed "Frankie," died of peritonitis the previous month and she breaks down crying in a beautiful scene. It is clear that not travelling to London and beginning a more conventional friendship is one of her biggest regrets, not least because she previously told him that she thought that he understood her better than anyone else. It is a tribute to the great skill of both Bancroft and Hopkins that the evolution of Hanff and Doel's friendship is presented in an entirely believable manner. There is a great chemistry between them even though they never appear together on screen.The film has a small but strong supporting cast. Judi Dench does not have a big role but she is nevertheless excellent as Nora, who becomes friends with Hanff herself but admits after her husband's death that she was occasionally jealous of their close friendship. This is best illustrated in a tense dinner scene in which Doel avoids making eye contact with her Nora, who looks at him somewhat bitterly. In spite of this, however, she is never depicted as being an unsympathetic character and there is an clear but understated sense of love and affection between the couple. The nature of the film means that no one other than Bancroft, Hopkins and, to a lesser extent, Dench has a chance to shine but I also impressed by Maurice Denham (in one of his final film roles), Mercedes Ruehl, Ian McNeice and Eleanor David.Overall, this is a marvellous film which is able to communicate the joy of reading far more effectively than I would have thought possible through this medium.

How could any flick with Ann Bancroft and Sir Anthony Hopkins be anything but good? ... This film is simply one of my favorite films of all time. The story, script, character development, acting ... everything about this film is A-One. Even the support performances are excellent. I could watch this film over and over again and never get sick of it.Bancroft is at her seasoned best in this movie. She is funny, smart, and attractive. So many people remember her only as "Mrs. Robinson," but she is so much more than that, and this film really shows how good she really was. The world is a sadder, darker place without her in it. She will go down as my favorite actress of all time.This movie is quietly brilliant. That's all I can say. You have to watch it to believe what I'm saying. It's just ... lovely.

Anyone who knows London knows and loves Charing Cross Road that has been able to resist any kind or urban change, even recent urban renovation, since I first stepped into it in 1960. I have walked it up to Tottenham Court Station and Road and down to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery more often than Champs Elysées in Paris or Broadway in New York. It is for me one street I love discovering every single time I am in London with all its book stores, Covent Garden on one side and Soho on the other side, Leicester square on that other side, and the National gallery at the bottom of the street not to speak of Saint Martin's in the Fields and its underground crypt where you can eat with the ghosts. Fifty years haunting that place, that road, its shops, theaters, churches and left or right hinterlands. The Strand next to it is nothing and I can live without ever setting one toe of one foot in it, but Charing Cross Road… This film is thus nostalgic about what it was, and still is, in spite of the death of two people and the closing of Marks books that I actually visited before it closed, or it might be another one, they were and are all just as beautiful and intriguing. But the film is not about nostalgia for some place you have visited and loved, not even a person you have loved and lived with in a way or another, but about a service you can only get from true secondhand bookstores because they don't sell books but they sell the books they love and cherish to people who love and cherish them just the same. These secondhand bookstores and booksellers have a charm that is not only quaint but is like an accomplice-ship in the crime of loving books, old books, beautiful books, books that have been used, visited and read by what we imagine are hundreds of people. The last book I got from England is from the University Library of Leeds, still with its barcode, its number, its Reference tag, its "not to be borrowed" tag and a book that was published in 1960, precisely, fifty years ago, a book no one can find any more except in university libraries and I have it on my desk, as if I had borrowed it and forgotten to give it back and left the country with it. That's what a second hand book is, and that's what this film is trying to make you feel by exploring the feelings of the bookseller and the customer, one in New York and the other in London, sharing (a perfect word for Charing Cross Street) the love of old books and the hunt and chase for them and the pleasure of a capture that can never be planned out and foreseen. No one can imagine what it means to hold an original edition of Walter Scott's novels and the communion with all those who have turned the fragile pages. Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins are rendering these feelings intertwined with real events from 1949 to the early 1960s, care packages and one coronation, plus plenty of New Year celebrations and Christmases, and we feel that spiritual love adventure among several grownups who will never meet and who are bringing together emotions and passions all connected to those books and the help one can bring to all the others in their hopes and sufferings. You will definitely see more of London than New York but London is the main character brought to life by two great actors and a sweet story.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID