The guernsey literary & Potato Peel Pie society

Reading between the lines…

Try asking for that at your local multiplex.

CERTIFICATE TBC DIRECTOR Mike Newell STARRING Lily James, Jessica Brown Findlay SCREENPLAY Kevin Hood, Thomas Bezucha, Don Roos DISTRIBUTOR Studiocanal RUNNING TIME 123 mins OUT 20 APRIL

A s unwieldy film titles go, this is right up there with To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar. Yet Mike Newell’s latest is far simpler than its name, its story of a book club established in the face of Guernsey’s wartime occupation enabling a cast of Downton Abbey alumni to pay heartfelt homage to stoicism under duress.

Juliet Ashton (Lily James) is a bluestocking English writer intrigued by correspondence from the eponymous society, a collection of eccentrics united by their love of lit and the only pudding available to them under the German yoke. Leaving behind a pushy American boyfriend (Glen Powell), Juliet sails to the island to investigate the group’s co-founder (Jessica Brown Findlay), a headstrong rebel whose sad history mirrors Guernsey’s troubled legacy of resistance and collaboration.

Balancing quirky humour with rueful poignancy, the film ambles along agreeably as Sir Tom Courtenay, Dame Penelope Wilton et al. show how they earned their honours.

THE VERDICT

A middling publishing hit becomes a defiantly middlebrow period piece, with pleasant scenery and a hint of ’Allo ’Allo!