The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society

The power of the written word, and the truth according to people and who own’s people’s stories are at the heart of this small sort-of historical story based on a book. The Guernsey wartime setting suggests a war film but this is a family drama uncovered by a stranger. The stranger is author Juliet Ashton (Lily James!) who, fresh from literary success in postwar London is inspired to visit the channel island after receiving a letter from the man who, it turns out, invented the Literary Society as an excuse to tell the Nazis when he and his family were caught outside at night.

Tom Courtenay is quietly terrific as the wise patriarchal figure, and Juliet uncovers the story of what happened to the family during the Nazi occupation. It is he who invents the Potato Peel Pie, although the film is not as whimsical as that makes it seem: eating potatoes and nothing else is of course sadness itself, and more in keeping with the tone.

 The timelines flip between war and post-war as Juliet becomes emotionally involved in an incident that’s always going to be a source of pain, most especially for Penelope Wilton, who is marvellous as the widowed Amelia. But the story of Elizabeth McKenna (Jessica Brown Findlay) is the film’s emotional linchpin—but the romantic heat is between Juliet and Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman) - although her friendship with Isola (Katherine Parkinson) who is in modern terms quite nerdy, into making gin, and thinks her romantic life is going to take off like it did for Katherine in Wuthering Heights. Juliet is very close to her publisher Sidney Stark (Matthew Goode) but “he likes boys names” to quote Isola. Back in London Juliet has an American suitor, Mark Reynolds (Glen Powell)—who clearly doesn’t have a shot.

The film is low-key and not really a big screen affair. Guernsey doesn’t get the exposure that other islands tend to, and it certainly contrasts with war-torn London—although the film was made in Devon. The evocation of Foyle’s bookshop in its heyday is amusing, especially since they miss out how complicated it used to be to buy a book at what used to be a profoundly eccentric shop.

It’s an okay film, and a bit of escapism. The theme of books and literature being an escape from tyranny (in this case horrific Nazi occupation) is always good, and the heroism that’s not spoken of because it’s in-hand with tragedy. Lily James is very good and totally believable as an inquisitive author.