In the imperfect, but clever and genuinely moving comedy-drama “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry,” a lonely bookseller finds love and fulfillment in a way that will remind readers of some of the plots of their favorite books. Set for the most part in the fictional Cape Cod-adjacent Alice Island (the film was shot in Hyannis, Massachusetts), the film tells the story of A.J. Fikry (Kunal Nayyar of “The Big Bang Theory” making the leap to romantic lead), a prickly and fiercely opinionated book store owner being sucked dry in the age of e-readers and young people who have never learned to love analog books.
Still, A.J. makes a decent living in the nicely maintained, if badly painted (purple) building in which he also lives. A.J. lost his wife recently and has been drinking himself to sleep at night. On one of those nights, A.J. is robbed, or so he believes, of his copy of “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” a ridiculously rare 1827 publication of Edgar Allan Poe. A.J. is so numb that he does not know the attractive and intelligent Providence book agent Amelia Loman (Lucy Hale), who made the trek to Alice Island to see him in person, is flirting with him. On an earlier date, someone leaves a weeping 2-year-old child named Maya (Charlotte Thanh Theresin) in A.J.’s book shop with a note. Of course, A.J. takes Maya in and adopts her. Poe’s poem “Tamerlane” is the story of a man who laments the loss of a youthful love. One of A.J.’s best friends, sort of, is an unfaithful writer named Daniel (Scott Foley), who is married to A.J.’s sister-in-law Ismay (Christina Hendricks). A.J. is also friendly with the town’s eccentric and unusually sensitive Police Chief Lambiese (David Arquette).
Alice Island has a ferry service and a restaurant called The Pequod, where for a price you may enjoy a cocktail called a Queequeg and “a whale of a meal.” The film, which was adapted by the book’s author Gabrielle Zevin, is based on her bestselling 2015 novel. She and director Hans Canosa, who is her partner and fellow Harvard graduate, have crafted an unsurprisingly novel-like and suitably literary film. “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is, yes, full of stories, ones already written, like “Moby Dick,” and ones that we are told by characters in the film (not to mention the film itself).
