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 thought to be impossible, the British Government could only make evacuation plans. In June 1940 Whitehall sent enough ships to the islands to allow anyone to leave voluntarily.
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German soldiers who invaded the Channel Islands
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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.
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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.
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Juliet and her American fiance' Mark.
At a jazz dance
In a flashback we saw a 1941 scene on the Guernsey cliffs where some 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. Nazi soldiers and attack-dogs caught the drinkers! 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, including the existence of his book club, 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 (but this was unclear to me at the time). 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 wartime 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 making and 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. But where was Elizabeth and had she survived?
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Isola, Eben, Eli, Amelia and Dawsey, meeting Juliet
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Sidney Starke, Juliet's London publisher/best friend.
People who have ever been a member of a book club will appreciate how the love of literature can link people together, even improbable co-readers. Discussing literature in the Potato Peel Pie Society was both unconventional and entertaining. Juliet became so entranced with these islander that she didn’t want to go home.
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 thought to be impossible, the British Government could only make evacuation plans. In June 1940 Whitehall sent enough ships to the islands to allow anyone to leave voluntarily.
in June 1940 and took them over until May 1945.
The Germans invested a fortune into these four small, sparsely populated islands because militarily they were in an ideal location, 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 Nazi Germany with their fighting force of 28,000 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.
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.
at different meetings around the country.
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.
At a jazz dance
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, including the existence of his book club, 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 (but this was unclear to me at the time). 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 wartime 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 making and 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. But where was Elizabeth and had she survived?
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 couldn’t possibly have even known about.
So 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, needed do nothing more intellectual than breathe.
So 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, needed do nothing more intellectual than breathe.
People who have ever been a member of a book club will appreciate how the love of literature can link people together, even improbable co-readers. Discussing literature in the Potato Peel Pie Society was both unconventional and entertaining. Juliet became so entranced with these islander that she didn’t want to go home.