Channel a feel-good war film

There’s enough drama and feelgood factor to leave you feeling more than satisfied.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (M, 124mins) Directed by Mike Newell ***1⁄2

Ashton (Lily James) has known triumph and tragedy. Her first book – a biography of Anne Bronte – sold just 28 copies.

Her parents were killed during World War II. But her latest book, Izzy

Bickerstaff Goes To War, has been a major success, putting her in hot demand for book tours and speaking engagements.

Juliet receives a commission from

The Times to pen a series about reading, she is also working on book about English foibles and miscellany.

‘‘Did you know that there’s a London society that advocates trousers for horses?’’ she tells her long-suffering publisher and best-friend Sidney (Matthew Goode).

However, it’s when she receives a letter asking for her help in finding a book that another group catches her eye. The missive is from Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), a member of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was formed under duress on the Channel island in 1941 when faced with incarceration by the occupying German forces for an ‘‘illegal assembly’’.

Their invaders allowed such organisations, even while suspending the postal service and confiscating animals.

Five years on and with war over, the hardy group of locals still meet every Friday night for robust literary discussions and a slice of butterless, flourless, tasteless pie. Desperate to learn more, Juliet cancels all her engagements to rush to the island.

What she discovers though is a tale with far more depth, deception and derring-do than she could have ever imagined.

Based on Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ 2008 novel of the same name, Guernsey is an entertaining hybrid of Ealing-style comedy and World War II drama (think Whisky Galoremeets-last-year’s-Their Finest, by way of

1984’s A Private Function).

Mike Newell’s (Four Weddings and a

Funeral) movie is filled with oddball characters, inspirational defiance and cross-cultural love.

The excellent cast not only includes the luminous James and Goode, but their fellow Downton Abbey alumni Jessica Brown Findlay and Penelope Wilton, In

the Club‘s Katherine Parkinson and the venerable Tom Courtenay (45 Years).

Yes, some of the narrative twists are a bit creaky, the plot machinations a touch predictable and the rom-com tropes pile up, but there’s enough drama and feelgood factor to leave you feeling, unlike sampling the potentially unctuous pastry of the title, more than satisfied.