It's worth noting from the very beginning that we haven't seen 'Wild Mountain Thyme' yet.
In an equally bizarre twist, Lionsgate has so far refused to send us a screener, and hasn't even confirmed a release date with us as of yet. The movie was released in US theatres and on VOD last week, but for whatever reason, the movie is not yet available in Ireland and the studio behind it isn't showing it to people from the actual country that it's set in.
Fun times!
So, no doubt you've heard some rumblings online and on social media about what the big twist ending of 'Wild Mountain Thyme' is. Well, if you don't feel like sitting through 90-odd minutes of cloying paddywhackery, we've been able to piece together the ending from Wikipedia, social media reports, and by US reviewers equally baffled by the whole thing as we are.
The big reveal at the end of 'Wild Mountain Thyme' is that.... (drum-roll) Jamie Dornan's character thinks he's a bee. Like, an actual bee.
No, we're not taking the piss here. That's really it. Slate did a pretty good rundown of his character's behaviour throughout the movie leading up to this moment, including a scene where Blunt's character finds him arguing with thin air - presumably, he's talking to the bugs or whatever.
That's not the only twist, per se. Emily Blunt's character than talks about how she thinks she's a swan, and how her father played her 'Swan Lake' when she was a child and the memory of it made her think she was a swan. In fact, an earlier scene with Blunt and Jon Hamm's character sees her adamantly tell him that she's a swan.
Evidently, what writer / director John Patrick Shanley - who previously won an Oscar, a Tony Award, and a Pulitzer - is driving at is how people sometimes hide their true nature and it prevents them from being happy and finding true love.
Fine, but this? This is how you go about folding that theme into a story? Right so.
Oh, fun fact to note - 'Wild Mountain Thyme' received €280,000 in funding from Screen Ireland, an undisclosed amount through a separate fund called the Western Region Audiovisual Producer, and it also received a Section 481 tax write-off somewhere between €500,000 and €1,000,000.
Congratulations, people of Ireland - your tax money paid for this crap!