The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

• Director: Mike Newell
• Based on the novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Cast: Lily James, Jessica Brown Findley, Tom Courtney, Michiel Huisman, Katherine Parkinson, Matthew Goode, Glen Powell, Penelope Wilton, Bronagh Gallagher
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Lily James – Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, Downton Abbey, Cinderella
• Jessica Brown Findley – Victor Frankenstein, Winter’s Tale, Downton Abbey
• Tom Courtney – Unforgotten, The Quartet, Last Orders, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, The Dresser, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Doctor Zhivago, The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner
• Michiel Huisman – Orphan Black, Wild, World War Z, Young Victoria
• Katherine Parkinson – Humans, Sherlock, Kiss Ass Girls 2 St Trinian’s, The Boat that Rocked
• Matthew Goode – Downton Abbey, The Imitation Game, Dancing on the Edge, Brideshead Revisited, Copying Beethoven
• Penelope Wilton – Downton Abbey, Hotel Marigold 1&2, South Riding, Doctor Who, Shaun of the Dead, The Calendar Girls, Clockwise, King Lear, Othello
• Bronagh Gallagher – Sherlock Holmes, Tristram Shandy, Tara Road, Mary Reilly, Pulp Fiction, The Commitments
• Why? Love the book
• Seen: 2 November 2019 with Hal and YW in our read-book-see-film group      

       We all love the book. We’re worried the film won’t do it justice, but the cast bodes well.

       It must be said. The changes made are not good ones. Why couldn’t they have followed the book more closely?

       With that said, does it hold up as a film? Yes, well enough. The cast is as could as expected, though the lead (James) is more or less interchangeable with any number of pretty young women like Carey Mulligan, Jenna Coleman, Alicia Vikander – good actors all but their looks are more a disadvantage than an advantage. Wilton and Courtney are especially good. The basic story follows the book – the literary society and the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Germans during WWII. The beauty of Guernsey is a main character but, in the credits, we are told that it was ‘filmed on location in England’. England???

  

3 ½ * of 5 (We agree that we might like it more next time when the book isn’t so fresh in our memories.)