A London writer forms a bond with the members of a book club on the island of Guernsey

Rating: 7/10 (17 April 2018)

British and French troops fighting Nazi Germany suffer a stunning defeat in May 1940 on mainland Europe. Germany invades the Channel Islands, livestock is impounded and a night curfew imposed.
Late one night, Elizabeth (Jessica Brown Findlay) Eben (Tom Courtenay) Isola (Katherine Parkinson) and Dawsey (Michiel Huisman) are noisily making their way home after feasting on a roasted pig that Amelia (Penelope Wilton) has hidden from the invaders. A blinding headlight terrifies the friends and a group of soldiers wielding machine guns prepare to arrest the group for being out after dark.
Quick-thinking Elizabeth offers the suggestion that they are merely returning home from a meeting of their book club. She fumbles around for a name ... and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is born.
The islanders eagerly take the opportunity to meet regularly to discuss whatever books they can lay their hands on.
The meetings continue after the war. The friends wish to add to their library and Dawsey writes to Juliet Ashton (Lily James) a name he's found inside a book by Charles Lamb, requesting the name of a London book shop that might stock further books by that author.
Juliet, a successful writer with a bestseller recently published, is struggling to find inspiration for her next book. She's intrigued by the curiously named Guernsey Literary & Potato Pie Peel Society and - as one does on the spur of the moment - flies off to Guernsey to meet its members.
The film is based on a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows that sold 7.5 million copies worldwide. Eben, in the film, is an amalgam of three characters in the book: the fisherman, the postmaster and the islander who thought up the recipe for the very first potato peel pie.
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society is a charming, feel-good romantic drama. There's much to admire: a good story-line, excellent acting, unobtrusive music, a mystery to unravel, touches of humour and a few emotional, teary, tissue-dabbing moments. It's also predictable, minimises the blood and gore from the aircraft attacks in the re-enactments and, at just over two hours, overstays its welcome.