The twist in the tale: Wild Mountain Thyme

Warning: very spoilery about the birds and the bees. (If you’re looking for my review, it’s here.)

So have you worked it out yet? Maybe you asked the Film Twitter hive mind?

These are farming folk so there are plenty of animals in Wild Mountain Thyme (Rosemary’s crazy horse, the donkey Anthony is claimed to be dating by arch local nemesis Cleary) though the one in the big twist was unexpected to say the least. Anthony believes himself to actually be a bee. A honeybee, to be precise. Don’t believe me? “I believe that I am a honeybee,” he says. On the plus side, I have had Billie’s Honey To The Bee as an earworm since I watched this.

There is little evidence we can pluck out in hindsight for this revelation (about Anthony, not Billie’s fabulously catchy pre-Doctor Who career). He does sniff a flower as a child, and he later frees a bee from the house, releasing it outside. If you thought a bee was weird, there is also Rosemary’s obsession with being the swan in Swan Lake. In fact she states clearly that she feels she is the white swan in the ballet.

There don’t seem to be be many other bee or swan references.

He lacks yellow and black stripy jumpers. He never, to my knowledge, listens to Sting. And while one could describe the film as sweet it’s not sugary. He never even says “honey, comb?” when Rosemary comes galloping towards him, gorgeous auburn tresses all a-tangle. Admittedly she’s his queen and he does drone on but really that’s all I’ve got. (The herb puns were so much easier!)

She lacks the sense of gliding through life while paddling furiously below (she’s gorgeous and windswept, possibly a little wild, not elegant and serene).

It’s just that he is a bee and she is a swan.

So at least they have something in common, to help them bridge the gap.

They do end up getting together, despite Rosemary enjoying a whirlwind 24 hours in New York with Adam (she asks him to take her to the ballet to see Swan Lake, of course). Later when Adam flies back to Ireland he meets another woman on the plane — so while Anthony and Rosemary are finally getting it together around the local landscapes in the pouring rain, and no one remembers to pick up Adam from the airport, he at least has someone to go off with.

It also turns out that the reason Anthony has been metal detecting is because he has lost his mother’s ring, which he wanted to propose to Rosemary with. She later finds it by her own farm gate, and when she returns it to him he says “sure it’s yours. It always was.”

I hope they will beeeeeeeeee happy ever after.