Jon Amiel’s Creation (2009)

Jon Amiel’s Creation (2009)

Charles Darwin’s struggle to complete and publish On the Origin of the Species (1859) is Amiel’s idea for a picnic. This picnic probably never happened, but Amiel thought it a pleasant way for Darwin to discuss his scientific observations. The jolly picnic...
Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s Up (2009)

Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s Up (2009)

The newlyweds, Carl, and Ellie Fredricksen, dream of their future at a picnic. Walking out into the countryside, Karl and Ellie spread a picnic on the grass. Then, looking at the sky, they dream of a family. Alas, their romantic dreams of visiting Paradise Falls are...

Jane Campion’s Bright Star (2009)

Bright Star (2009), Jane Campion’s version of John Keats and Fanny Brawne’s love affair, invents two romantic courtship picnic scenes. These moments are poignant because we know the romance will end in heartbreak. The first is a picnic at which they kiss....
David Nichol’s One Day (2009)

David Nichol’s One Day (2009)

As sappy romantic novels go, David Nicholls’ One Day (2009) is about a one-night sexual encounter that becomes a life-long romantic heartache. Dexter and Emma’s picnic on Arthur’s Seat is never revealed, but we do know what each brings in their...
Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took my Dog for a Walk (2010)

Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took my Dog for a Walk (2010)

“Killing time” is Atkinson’s euphemism for a picnic. When Tracy Waterhouse, a retired sixty-five-year-old police detective, inexplicably abducts Courtney, a child of five, she is unsure about entertaining her. In near desperation, she suggests,...
Dover Kosashvili’s The Duel (2010)

Dover Kosashvili’s The Duel (2010)

Kosashvili’s picnic is comic and glum, as Chekhov intended. While other picnickers enjoy the view, Laevski, the protagonist, says, “To be in continual ecstasy over nature shows a poverty of imagination.” Laevski is a man who cannot enjoy himself,...
Anton Corbijn’s The American (2010)

Anton Corbijn’s The American (2010)

Corbijn’s The American is moderately faithful to Martin Booth’s novel A Very Private Gentleman. It’s the story of a gunmaker/assassin hiding from his enemies. Booth’s novel has three picnics, but Corbijn includes two. Hired to make a...
Benjamin Black’s A Death in Summer (2011)

Benjamin Black’s A Death in Summer (2011)

Benjamin Black’s picnic at Howth alludes to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The date is the same fifty-two years later, June 16, 1956, but the picnickers and their intentions are very different. In Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, and Marian “Molly,” Tweedy make...