The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie SocietyBooks can transport us to places beyond our imagination; but sometimes they become a sorrowful reminder of how life used to be. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a drama and romance set in the aftermath of World War II, about a book club on the heretofore Nazi-occupied island of Guernsey, and a young novelist named Juliet Ashton (Lily James), who is invited into their fold. But when Juliet begins to see that this charming social group brimming with local flavor barely conceals a collective wounded heart, she aims to understand their pain--not just as a fellow literary enthusiast, but as a mutual survivor of wartime loss.
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (or TGL&PPPS, for short) opens with a short scene set in 1941 on the eponymous island, where a group of five people return from a night of revelry, only to be ambushed and accosted by the occupying Nazis, who confront them for breaking curfew. In a moment of clever improvisation, a young woman named Elizabeth McKenna (Jessica Brown Findlay) lies and declares that they are in a literary club. As she fumbles for a name, one of the elderly (and very inebriated) members of the group--a local postmaster named Eben Ramsey (Tom Courtenay)--burbles out "Potato Peel Pie", referring to a dish he brought to their dinner gathering earlier, and the name sticks. At this point, readers should probably be asking, "just what is 'potato peel pie'?" Well, this has to do with an imposition the Nazis made on the residents of Guernsey upon taking occupation--that their livestock would be confiscated to feed their soldiers, and incidentally keep the people further under their thumb. This convening of soon-to-be book enthusiasts was born from a collective act of rebellion--roasting a secreted away pig and sharing the sustenance with one another, along with some locally produced gin by another member, an herbalist named Isola Pribby (Katherine Parkinson). (Apparently, the pie--made solely from potatoes--doesn't share the culinary legacy to match its literary counterpart.) The group--including Amelia Maugery (Penelope Wilton), who lost her daughter and unborn granddaughter in the initial assault by the Nazis--are compelled to maintain the ruse to evade Nazi retaliation, which leads to them breaking into a shuttered-up book shop and procuring some tomes for their next "meeting". When the last of the five--a kind-hearted and handsome pig farmer named Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman)--grabs a copy of Charles Lamb's "Essays of Elia" which once belonged to Juliet, they begin a spree of letters over their mutual love for Lamb, which leads to an invitation by Dawsey for Juliet to visit Guernsey and present at their meeting. This compelling invitation stirs emotions deep within Juliet, who still has flashbacks to the death of her parents following the bombing of London. She follows her heart to seek out this kindred literary spirit, despite the protestations of her publisher and friend, Sidney Stark (Matthew Goode)--because it means putting her book tour on hold--and her wealthy American beau, Mark Reynolds (Glen Powell), who proposes just as she departs for Guernsey. Despite her recent engagement, Juliet remains conflicted with feelings thought long sequestered--to hide the pain of her own loss and propel her literary career (under the absurd pseudonym of "Izzy Bickerstaff"), and a deeper need to find some genuine companionship in the craft she has made into a career.
TGL&PPPS was in development since 2010, changing hands here and there, before its release in 2018. It was adapted from a book by the same name by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which was itself an epistolary novel, told through a series of letters--a rare novel form used in works like "Pamela" and "Dracula". The cast of TGL&PPPS is comprised of several talented British actors, including no less than four who had recurring roles on the beloved dramatic series, "Downton Abbey". Like "Downton", this film is like staring through a window into a key moment in history for the United Kingdom--or as Juliet puts it, like "coming through a dark tunnel only to emerge in a carnival". Juliet feels survivor's guilt after the war, but also a loss of individual accomplishment, gaining fame only through a series of shallow comedy books that only further distance her from her interest in writing, longing for more meaningful topics. When she comes to Guernsey, she takes a collection of essays she wrote on Anne Brontë, which leads to an animated discussion on the Brontë sisters with her newfound comrades in literature. The group is welcoming of Juliet, up to the point where she tries to ascertain what happened to the missing Elizabeth and when she shares her interest in writing about them for the London Times. Some like Amelia take her interest to be purely opportunistic, indicating that she is willing to open old wounds for profit. Juliet promises not to write on the group, but the implication that she is still an outsider remains. What TGL&PPPS does is explore how people identify their pain as something that cannot be appreciated or understood by another, when in reality everyone has lost someone, and the best way to grieve is with the support of another. This is felt strongest in Amelia, owing to all of the personal loss she has suffered, but it's present for each of the members of the group, as well as Juliet. Juliet has retreated into a shallow kind of writing and into an engagement that seems equally vapid so that she doesn't have to confront her own grief. The heartfelt correspondence she gets from Dawsey begins to melt the proverbial frost that has settled on her heart; and as it warms, she begins to realize that she need more spiritual sustenance than what she's been chasing since the war ended.
Recommended for: Fans of a charming and heartfelt romance that explores pain and grief, but also what joy comes from a common interest that helps to close the gap between strangers, transforming them into friends and more. TGL&PPPS has a couple of moments of bleak sadness, but is fundamentally a touching, warming story that is both acceptable for most audiences and has an important historical component to it--kind of a mix between a Hallmark movie and a British period drama.
TGL&PPPS was in development since 2010, changing hands here and there, before its release in 2018. It was adapted from a book by the same name by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which was itself an epistolary novel, told through a series of letters--a rare novel form used in works like "Pamela" and "Dracula". The cast of TGL&PPPS is comprised of several talented British actors, including no less than four who had recurring roles on the beloved dramatic series, "Downton Abbey". Like "Downton", this film is like staring through a window into a key moment in history for the United Kingdom--or as Juliet puts it, like "coming through a dark tunnel only to emerge in a carnival". Juliet feels survivor's guilt after the war, but also a loss of individual accomplishment, gaining fame only through a series of shallow comedy books that only further distance her from her interest in writing, longing for more meaningful topics. When she comes to Guernsey, she takes a collection of essays she wrote on Anne Brontë, which leads to an animated discussion on the Brontë sisters with her newfound comrades in literature. The group is welcoming of Juliet, up to the point where she tries to ascertain what happened to the missing Elizabeth and when she shares her interest in writing about them for the London Times. Some like Amelia take her interest to be purely opportunistic, indicating that she is willing to open old wounds for profit. Juliet promises not to write on the group, but the implication that she is still an outsider remains. What TGL&PPPS does is explore how people identify their pain as something that cannot be appreciated or understood by another, when in reality everyone has lost someone, and the best way to grieve is with the support of another. This is felt strongest in Amelia, owing to all of the personal loss she has suffered, but it's present for each of the members of the group, as well as Juliet. Juliet has retreated into a shallow kind of writing and into an engagement that seems equally vapid so that she doesn't have to confront her own grief. The heartfelt correspondence she gets from Dawsey begins to melt the proverbial frost that has settled on her heart; and as it warms, she begins to realize that she need more spiritual sustenance than what she's been chasing since the war ended.
Recommended for: Fans of a charming and heartfelt romance that explores pain and grief, but also what joy comes from a common interest that helps to close the gap between strangers, transforming them into friends and more. TGL&PPPS has a couple of moments of bleak sadness, but is fundamentally a touching, warming story that is both acceptable for most audiences and has an important historical component to it--kind of a mix between a Hallmark movie and a British period drama.