Banal

Rating: 5/10 (3 May 2020)

Excessively sentimental film that really falls into the 'chickflick' category despite pretensions to something more meaningful. It totally fails to explore properly the tensions that arise in a society under military occupation, and is very simplistic in its view of good and bad.
Lily James is adequate as the lead and looks very well in the 1940s fashions, but some of the other characters are more caricatures than real people. The child parts are played well. Jessica Brown Findlay's talents are wasted in the small role of the saintly Elizabeth.
Most irritating is the way it has been filmed in terms of locations. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with filming in England a story which is set in Guernsey; but it would be better if it was at least depicted realistically. During WWII St Peter Port was a substantial town with a proper harbour, and Guernsey had an airfield (at which the occupying German forces landed); but from this film you would think that planes could only land on the beach, and that St Port was a tiny fishing village on a hill.