“Wild Mountain Thyme” (PG)
IN 1988, American writer John Patrick Shanley won the Best Screenplay Oscar. In 2014, his play “Outside Mullingar” ran for 2½ months on Broadway, after which he turned it into a novel and then into the screenplay for “Wild Mountain Thyme”, which he then directed.
The title comes from a folk song. The lyrics and melody are a variant of “The Braes of Balquhither” by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill and Scottish composer Robert Archibald Smith that Belfast musician Francis McPeake adapted into “Wild Mountain Thyme”. It’s a lovely song.
So what’s Shanley’s play, novel and now movie about after all this trans-Atlantic manipulation?