It may have an epic quality, so typical of British post-WWII period dramas, but the quirkily entitled The Guernsey & Potato Peel Pie Literary Society sadly fails to live up to expectations.
Overlong at 124 minutes, every passing moment is predictable – from the cloyingly annoying novelist Juliet Ashton (Lily James) and her love affair with the fun but brash American Glen Powell through to her foray to Guernsey to find out more about the literary society and life under German occupation. And of course she meets her Heathcliff – the dark and broody Michiel Huisman.
It’s cosily well told (director Mike Newell) as Ashton becomes close to some of the local residents but a bit of passion and grubbiness would have been welcome (even the farm dirt looked as if it had been carefully applied).
Rating: 46%
Director: Mike Newell (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Donnie Brasco)
Writer: Don Roos (Marley & Me, Happy Endings), Kevin Hood (A Royal Night Out, Becoming Jane), Thomas Bezucha (The Family Stone, Monte Carlo) – based on the novel by Mary Ann Shafer & Annie Barrows
Main cast: Lily James (Cinderella, Baby Driver), Michiel Huisman (The Age of Adaline, TV’s Game of Thrones), Tom Courtenay (Dr. Zhivago, The Dresser)
An Opinion or Two 
I disliked the book intensely – read it only because it was a book club read. The reviews I’ve seen indicate that I would have a similar reaction to the film
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I felt whilst watching the film that it was one of those books where the film would be better. Not saying a lot as the film was bad – but probably still better than the book!
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