surface tension

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2019)

When you're dealing with a story about the German occupation of the Channel Islands it's almost a sin to gloss over the effects the way this film does.
By way of disclosure I used to live in the Channel Island of Jersey many years ago and I saw bits and pieces of the legacy of the Occupation. There were underground hospitals, even an aborted railway system.... all built by slave labour .
Simply having a few troops walk through the centre of town leaves a dearth of stories to be told.
How did they implement their takeover? How did they let the administration run the island? How did they treat the islanders?
All of these plotline motherlodes were sacrificed for the love story
(which was quite well done, although telegraphed from the start).
On reflection, the morning after viewing it, I would say that it's a typical U.K. picture, well acted with the usual overdoing it with kids and twanging of the heartstrings........ but not really my cup of tea.
It still gets my back up after all these years, to see the way the class system was entrenched (and by all accounts it still is!)
I would have preferred a bit more exploration of the Island culture itself and a bit more depth in the way they dealt with the occupation but.... Hey! I wasn't on the crew!
But if I look at it as a work of entertainment then it's done its job , there's a lot of acting talent on display and boy those guys are convincing in their snooty roles.