Miss Willoughby y la librería embrujada

Being an Anglophile, I was thrilled to see that this was filmed in England. I'm a sucker for a British Estate.

Anyway, I am glad I stuck with this. It started out a tad slowly but it held my interest. At first though I didn't even realize that Kelsey was playing the older version of the guardian who took over the young girl's tutelage after her parents' passing. I had to look at the IMDB cast credits to get it straight.

The lead actress playing the adult version (whose parents passed away) had a nice rapport with Kelsey. Her fascination with martial arts classes at the film's outset was confusing though. Apparently, it coincided with her education and interests reflected in the young girl's reading material shown early on.

Overall, it was a tidy little film that I feel could have been bolstered with more suspense and/or thrills to be a true "haunting." Kelsey was the only actor with whom I was familiar but the rest of the cast kept up with him.

Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop is a simple old fashioned British whodunit mystery.

Miss Willoughby is not Miss Marple and this story is definitely not a Agatha Christie story. Also the movie has a TV look and may be a bit slow for some, but it is a good story with very likable actors.

We open in 1996 and young Elizabeth Willoughby is attending her parents funeral. Elizabeth inherits the family's elaborate huge English Estate complete with full-time servants. A family friend, Robert (Kelsey Grammer) becomes Elizabeth's Guardian and caretaker of the Family Estate.

Robert raises Elizabeth and trains and teaches her fitness, martial arts, chess. And ancient war strategies.

Then we cut 25 years later, and now an adult, a book author, and Professor of Ancient Civilizations, Elizabeth (Nathalie Cox) is asked to investigate a series of hauntings at her friend's Bookshop.

As Elizabeth starts to investigate, she begins to question the possibility that this may be a real ghost.

The movie is more of a fun British TV show and doesn't really take itself too seriously but I did enjoy it. The ending suggest that this may be the first of many more Miss Willoughby mystery films.

This is a sweet little English mystery. It has some potential, but no surprises. I quite liked the actors.

Overall, the movie feels like it would be part of a series, yet not the FIRST one. I was puzzled by the many references to backstory not explained: antagonistic history with the psychiatrist, mentions of Miss Willoughby being a bit a sleuth, lack of details about the books she authored, the detective's reference to trouble often finding her. Initially, I thought there must have been a previous movie, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The lack of basic logic is hard to swallow. With a woman having hallucination and paranoia, who is also on medication, it seems like the first step would be to verify that the medication is what it should be. I'm also curious how such a well put together woman manages without a purse. She's wearing skin tight riding breaches. I suppose there are pockets in her jacket, although it's fairly tailored. Are the pockets large enough to hold keys, cell phone, hairbrush, extra makeup....the things we women usually carry around?

I'm not quite sure why this movie got so many negative reviews and comments. It could just be that they do not understand British humor and television. In my opinion this has been a completely brilliant British whodunit. Kelsey Grammer is excellent and his role. The lead actress is likable and interesting. It has your typical British humor and mystery.

Don't give it a negative review simply because you don't understand or like British humor because as a mystery it's pretty good.

Personally I hope they make more movies together as they had excellent on screen chemistry. It reminds me of a type of Agatha Christie and Murder She Wrote.

Was expecting it to be a hallmark quality production but it was actually decent. Sure there not great actors and Kelsey grammer doesn't try anymore but it had a decent mystery and story going throughout. Not overly long or complicated, worth the watch for someone looking for a short murder mystery.