It's the beginning of our new season, we needed a crowd-pleaser to start with and pull in the members so I suggested this film. Fortunately it seemed to work as the film went down well and we actually secured a few new members. I'd seen the film at the cinema, and watching it again made me appreciate how well it was structured, although I don't think I'd rush out to buy the source novel.
Here are my notes:
The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
UK 2018 123 minutes
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Lily James, Michel Huisman, Glen
Powell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Katherine Parkinson, Matthew Goode, Tom
Courtenay and Penelope Wilton
“Buoyed by a reliably
appealing star turn from [Lily] James, this handsome tearjerker mostly
sidesteps the tweeness of its title to become, somehow, both an old-fashioned
romance and a detective story trumpeting gender equality.”
Harry Windsor, The Hollywood
Reporter
In 1946 author Juliet
Ashton (Lily James) decides to visit the island of Guernsey after Dawsey Adams
(Michel Huisman), a local man with whom she has been in correspondence, tells
her about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which had been established
during the Nazi occupation of the island. Juliet plans to write just about the
Society but gradually she begins to be drawn into island life as she learns
what happened there during the war.
The film is an
adaptation of the epistolary novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows:
Shaffer had been fascinated by the Nazi occupation of Guernsey and had spent
years researching the subject before beginning to write the novel but then
became too ill to finish it. Annie Burrows is Shaffer’s niece and, as a
successful author in her own right, was able to take over the novel and complete
it ready for publication after which it became a global best-seller.
Kate Winslet had
initially been cast in the role of Juliet but had to drop out when production
of the film was delayed. Subsequently both Michelle Dockery and Rosamund Pike
were approached to take on the leading role before Lily Jams was finally cast. Lily
James made her name in Downton Abbey which
also included Jessica Brown Findlay, Matthew Goode and Penelope Wilton, all of
whom already had impressive stage and screen credits to their name, as regular cast
members. However since her role in Downton
Abbey Lily James has significantly extended her own list of credits with a
series of major roles: she played the lead in the recent BBC adaptation of War and Peace, and after playing title
role lead in Kenneth Branagh’s live action film of Cinderella (2015) she also appeared in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), Darkest Hour (2017) and,
most recently, as young Donna in Mamma
Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).
Mike Newell started his
career in television where his early work includes Dance with a Stranger (1985) Enchanted
April (1992) and Into the West
(1992). He came to international prominence in the cinema with Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), and
since then his eclectic career has included literary adaptations such as An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) and Great Expectations (2012) as well as
blockbusters such as Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire (2005) and Prince of
Persia: The Sands of Time (2010). His future projects include an untitled
film about the death of Alexander Litvinenko as well as a new version of The Day of the Triffids.
UK 2018 123 minutes
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Lily James, Michel Huisman, Glen
Powell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Katherine Parkinson, Matthew Goode, Tom
Courtenay and Penelope Wilton
“Buoyed by a reliably
appealing star turn from [Lily] James, this handsome tearjerker mostly
sidesteps the tweeness of its title to become, somehow, both an old-fashioned
romance and a detective story trumpeting gender equality.”
Harry Windsor, The Hollywood
Reporter
In 1946 author Juliet
Ashton (Lily James) decides to visit the island of Guernsey after Dawsey Adams
(Michel Huisman), a local man with whom she has been in correspondence, tells
her about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which had been established
during the Nazi occupation of the island. Juliet plans to write just about the
Society but gradually she begins to be drawn into island life as she learns
what happened there during the war.
The film is an
adaptation of the epistolary novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows:
Shaffer had been fascinated by the Nazi occupation of Guernsey and had spent
years researching the subject before beginning to write the novel but then
became too ill to finish it. Annie Burrows is Shaffer’s niece and, as a
successful author in her own right, was able to take over the novel and complete
it ready for publication after which it became a global best-seller.
Kate Winslet had
initially been cast in the role of Juliet but had to drop out when production
of the film was delayed. Subsequently both Michelle Dockery and Rosamund Pike
were approached to take on the leading role before Lily Jams was finally cast. Lily
James made her name in Downton Abbey which
also included Jessica Brown Findlay, Matthew Goode and Penelope Wilton, all of
whom already had impressive stage and screen credits to their name, as regular cast
members. However since her role in Downton
Abbey Lily James has significantly extended her own list of credits with a
series of major roles: she played the lead in the recent BBC adaptation of War and Peace, and after playing title
role lead in Kenneth Branagh’s live action film of Cinderella (2015) she also appeared in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), Darkest Hour (2017) and,
most recently, as young Donna in Mamma
Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).
Mike Newell started his
career in television where his early work includes Dance with a Stranger (1985) Enchanted
April (1992) and Into the West
(1992). He came to international prominence in the cinema with Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), and
since then his eclectic career has included literary adaptations such as An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) and Great Expectations (2012) as well as
blockbusters such as Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire (2005) and Prince of
Persia: The Sands of Time (2010). His future projects include an untitled
film about the death of Alexander Litvinenko as well as a new version of The Day of the Triffids.
Here's a link to the trailer:
