The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

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:

Downton Abbey Exclusive

Today I can exclusively reveal that the next series of Downton Abbey will include a scene set at a fete - and I will not be in it.

When we went to the local fete - my wife bought up the-plant stall and I made a beeline for the books, I noticed a stall advertising for extras for the next series of Downton Abbey.

I was interested - inevitably - but the date did not work: filming was during the week, and unfortunately I do not have the leave left to take time off.

The high point of the afternoon was seeing Penelope Wilton opening the fete.  apparently she has some kind of role in Downton Abbey, but to me she will always be Harriet Jones - one of a whole range of ancillary characters in Doctor Who.

I resisted the temptation to say "I know who you are"...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Here are my notes for this week's screening.  As the film is set in India we'll be serving a selection of Indian snacks and beer to get the punters in the mood.

Despite some of the UK reviews the film seems to have been a sleeper hit, and we have had many requests to screen it, so hopefully we will have a good audience. 

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

UK 2011                      118 minutes

Director:                      John Madden

Starring:                        Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson, Ronald Pickup and Dev Patel

 “How can I suggest what a delight this film is? Let me try a little shorthand. Recall some of the wonderful performances you've seen from Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and the others, and believe me when I say that this movie finds rich opportunities for all of them.  Director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") has to juggle to keep his subplots in the air, but these actors are so distinctive, they do much of the work for him.”

Roger Ebert

A group of seven British ex-pats leave the UK to travel to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a retirement destination for “the elderly and beautiful”, in India.  All the characters have their own reason for making the move, but the most urgent is that local prices make retirement possible for all of them.

In the first half of the 1980s there was a cycle of films and television productions about Britain’s preoccupation with India and its imperial history, ranging from the early Merchant Ivory film Heat and Dust (1983), the TV series The Jewel in the Crown (1982) to David Lean’s epic version of A Passage to India (1984), all based on novels that explored aspects of the Anglo-Indian experience and life in the Raj.  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is also based on a novel (by Deborah Moggach), but one that explores the English experience of India in the twenty-first century, as a place of off-shoring, outsourcing and call centres.

John Madden made his name with the TV film Mrs Brown (1997) and the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love (1998), of which starred Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson, before moving to Hollywood where his subsequent films have included Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) and more recently a thriller called The Debt (2011), which starred Tom Wilkinson with Helen Mirren.  He had originally cast Peter O’Toole and Julie Christie to play Norman and Madge before replacing them by Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie, and subsequently confirmed that he had also considered Eileen Atkins and John Hurt for roles in the film.

 The film has not yet won any awards but there are rumours in the US of a likely nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Maggie Smith.

Here's the trailer: