84 Charing Cross Road (1987)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: David Jones

Writers: Hugh Whitemore, James Roose-Evans, Helene Hanff

Cinematographer: Brian West

Composer: George Fenton

Cast: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench

Based on Roose-Evans’s play, adapted from Hanff’s autobiographical epistolary book, this quietly moving work – chronicling the chaste, long distance friendship built up between a literature obsessed television writer from New York and a taciturn second-had bookseller from London, carried out entirely through frequently exchanged letters – is a film that boasts two exemplary performances, from Bancroft and Hopkins, suffused with sadness and joy, which make it a thoroughly compelling experience. Iain.Stott