The Guern­sey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - a wonderful film

Britain’s Channel Islands (pop 160,000) are self-governing crown depend­en­cies, off the French coast of Normandy. They comp­rise two separate self-governing bailiwicks: Guernsey and Jersey.

In 1940 a German in­vas­ion of Britain was possible, but an invasion of the Channel Islands was inevitable. The Germans had to protect their expansion into France from its western flank. And since de­fending the Channel Islands was was "impossible", the Brit­ish Government made evac­uat­ion plans, sending ships to the islands  in June 1940.

German soldiers who invaded the Channel Islands

in June 1940 and took them over until May 1945.

The Germans invested a fortune into these four small, sparsely pop­ul­ated islands because they were half way bet­ween Britain and Fran­ce. In June 1940, German bombers over the Islands bombed the harbours, killing dozens of islanders. Two days later Ger­man planes landed in Guernsey and met no resis­t­ance. Thus began the only wartime occup­at­ion of the British Isles, by 28,000 Nazi soldiers.

British Channel Island authorities coop­erated and largely ad­minist­ered much of the new legislation, handing over control to the German authorities. Film Director Mike Newell noted that German occupation involved everyday misery. They took the pigs away, they took the radios away, they made the locals talk in German. They made them drive on the right-hand side of the road. Islanders were miserable but out of this some funny stories emerged.

Juliet promoting her book
at different meetings around the country.

And there were tragedies. Which locals coll­aborated with the Germans in discovering who was Jewish? Which locals were helping Polish and Russian POWs escape the German death camps in the Channel Islands? Which women were sleeping with German soldiers for extra food?

Starvation was widespread. Only in Dec 1944 could the International Red Cross get a food ship to relieve starving island­ers. Lib­er­ation fin­ally came when an Allied task force arrived on Guernsey in May 1945, and were greeted by crowds of joy­ous islanders. The islanders may have been British sub­jects but they had not been defend­ed, fed or rescued by their own nat­ion.


Author Juliet Ashton (Lily James) starred in this adaptation of a success­ful novel written by Mary Ann Shaffer and edited by Annie Bar­rows, The Guern­sey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. In 1946 Juliet and her publisher Sidney Starke (Matt­h­ew Goode) were attending a reading of her book. When she was not carrying out pro­m­­otional duties, Juliet spent most of her time at lavish parties and clubs with her charming American GI boyfriend Mark Reynolds (Glen Powell) and inspecting real estate with her publisher Sidney. Great post-war clothes and great parties.

Juliet and her American fiance' Mark.
At a jazz dance

In a flashback we saw 1941 on the Guernsey cliffs where fig­ures were drunkenly stumbling home in the dark, breaking the German cur­few. They had been feasting on roast pig hidden from the invaders, who had confiscated the British island’s livestock to feed the German sold­iers, and were caught! The quickest-thinking drinker, El­iz­abeth McKenna (Jessica Findlay), babbled about a literary society whose name was quickly invented by the Guernsey postmaster Eben Ramsay (Tom Court­enay), Amelia Maugery (Penelope Wilton) and her daughter Elizabeth McKenna. 

The film re-focused on London-based Juliet as she was suffering through a press tour across 1946 Britain, promoting her new book. Unexpectedly she re­c­eiv­ed a letter from an un­known Guernsey man, Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huis­man), request­ing the loc­ation of a London bookshop. Intrigued by his mess­age, she wrote back.

Looking into one high-ceilinged flat, Juliet was terrified by a flashback to the bomb-ravaged home in which her parents had been killed. So when the letter arrived from Guernsey, she planned to leave London as soon as poss­ible. She accepted American Mark's marriage-proposal before sailing over the Channel, even though she believed in gender equality while Mark did not.

The film moved between occupation (1941) and post-war lib­eration (1946), when the Guernsey book club was still going strong. In addition to Dawsey and Eben, the members now included Eben's grand­son, Eli (Kit Connor), who was sent to the mainland days before the Germans arrived and Isola Pribby (Katherine Parkin­son), a redhead fond of drinking her own gin. Most not­able was the older Amelia, whose ambivalent attitude toward Juliet was infl­uen­ced by the terrible grief over the death of a pregnant daught­er and the disappearance of Elizabeth. Had Eliz­abeth survived?

Isola, Eben, Eli, Amelia and Dawsey, meeting Juliet

at the Guernsey Literary Book Society.

Citizens on the mainland were just starting to recover from the misery of WW2. But the people of the Channel Islands had experienced far worse horrors during the war, horrors that main­landers didn't known about.

I felt that the recent German occupation of the Channel Islands was poorly investig­ated by the film. Not surprisingly Juliet had no idea why her religious landlady acc­used El­izabeth of being too “friendly” with the enemy. Nor did Juliet un­d­erstand why a nasty local collaborator like Eddie Meares (Andy Gather­good) was shun­ned by the islanders for his role in Elizab­eth’s disapp­earance. Jul­iet's need to find Elizabeth’s true story domin­ated the story; members of the book club members helped her.

I personally don’t think romance should have been the most impor­t­ant theme in the film. After all Juliet's ambivalent mental state was crystal clear, especially in London in which her nerves become jagged. Handsome Dawsey, on the other hand, was not ambivalent. 

Sidney Starke, Juliet's London publisher/best friend.

Book club members will appreciate how the love of literature can link people together, even improbable co-members.