THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY (2018) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Mike Newell
Lily James, Tom Courtenay, Michiel Huisman,
Katherine Parkinson, Jessica Brown Findlay,
Matthew Goode, Glen Powell, Nicolo Pasetti
Before I read the novel this movie's based on, I didn't even know that during the Second World War, the Germans had invaded the Channel Islands between Britain and France, causing some 70 thousand British citizens to spend the war under Nazi occupation. The story revolves around books and letters and tells how a handful of neighbors on one of those islands survived by banding together over Charles Lamb, a roast pig, bottles of homemade gin and potato peel pie. The novel's done entirely in letters, which would be hard to pull off on film, but the movie finds its own way to do the job, with the kind of acting and location work that make you wish you could go there and meet these people. It'd fit nicely on a double bill with "The Bookshop", the Emily Mortimer movie released the same year.
