THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY
(M, 124mins) Directed by Mike Newell. Reviewed by James Croot
Juliet Ashton (Lily James) has known both 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.
Juliet, however, is just keen to write. Receiving 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 longsuffering publisher and friend Sidney (Matthew Goode).
However, it’s when she receives a letter asking for her assistance in locating 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. Further correspondence reveals that they were formed under duress on the Channel island in 1941 when faced with incarceration by the occupying German forces.
Keen to encourage “cultural association”, their invaders allowed such organisations, even while suspending all post and confiscating animals.
Five years on and one 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 and hurriedly accepts her American beau’s one in order to rush to the island. What she discovers is a tale with more depth, deception and derring-do than she could ever have 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 Galore-meets-last-year’s
Their Finest, by way of 1984’s A Private Function).
Mike Newell’s (Four Weddings and a Funeral, An
Awfully Big Adventure) movie, written by a trio whose combined credits include A Royal Night Out, The
Family Stone and Marley & Me, is filled with oddball characters, inspirational defiance and cross-cultural love.
The excellent cast includes the luminous James and Goode, but also their fellow Downton Abbey alumni Jessica Brown Findlay and Penelope Wilton, In the
Club’s Katherine Parkinson and Tom Courtenay (45 Years).
Yes, some of the narrative twists are a bit creaky, the plot machinations a touch predictable and the romcom tropes pile up, but there’s enough drama and feel-good factor to leave you feeling – unlike sampling the undelicious pastry of the title – more than satisfied. Q