Review of 84 Charing Cross Road

I first saw this movie before I read the book it is based on. I usually see films based on books in this way, but this time, I wish I had read the book first. There are letters in the book that should have appeared in the movie to flesh it out a bit more. Even so, it is one of the most affecting movies I have ever seen. It starts with a middle aged woman in a plane flying to London (Anne Bancroft). When she gets to the place she has been seeking, it is an abandoned storefront. She looks around wistfully as the first letter is read in her voice in the background. Magically, the film transports us back to the late 40's in New York, and to the correspondence between a woman living there and the man who is the manager of a bookshop at the title address in London (Sir Anthony Hopkins). The letters are read with great warmth and style, and the opening up in the film is well done and appropriate to the story. As the years advance, we are caught up in both of these people's lives and their correspondence. Due to events that look contrived in the movie (but make more sense in the book), Helene Hanff leads a life of the lower middle class and much as she would like to, there is no chance for her to afford the trip to London. So London is brought to her in both the great books she buys from the bookshop and by reading about the lives of Frand Doel and his family, and the other people who work at the bookstore. One of the most affecting scenes deals with the letters she receives from the other employees thanking her for the food parcels she sends to the employees for holidays. I look something like Bill Humphries, the cataloger, and his scene with his Great Aunt brought me to tears. As the years pass, there are some changes but the relationships endure. Many people have called this a love story, but the movie gives more evidence of this than the book ever does. I don't believe in that angle. Frank Doel was just part of Helene's feelings of London, and not a romance on her or his part. My only real criticism has to do with the end of the film. The book does not lead you to the same ending, and it is very helpful to read the sequel to 84 Charing Cross Road, called The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. She did not call a few days after Frank died to find the cost of a trip to London to go there. If they had filmed it from the book it would have been just as compelling. She decided to publish the letters as Frank had died, and the reprint of the book by Reader's Digest and the fact that a London publisher decided to publish the book over a year later gave her the impetus and the finances to go to London. Having said all that, it is a great film, with amazing performances all around. This is just about the only time I have ever said, the book is better. If fact, I would encourage people to read all of Helene Hanff's works. She was an astonishing writer, and someone I wish I could have known.