Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Spoiler-free.

This mouthful, so large and awkward that even the film's actors couldn't manage to not stumble over it, is the title of a movie, based on a novel, set just after WWII and centering on a young writer (the lovely Lily James) who happens upon a very odd story, and plunges into it headfirst -- as writers do -- only to find it even more compelling and life-changing than she ever could have dreamed up herself.

She does her best, poor girl, but the material is a mess of tropes repackaged in vintage paper.

This movie is not bad -- for what it is. I only feel comfortable in making that statement with the addition of the qualifier, because the movie is not what I expected or at all wanted, but I believe that if what it is is what a person wants to see, they would enjoy it very much. So -- I'm going to try and describe what it is as accurately as possible. If it still sounds good to you when I'm done, then you'll know it's the movie for you.

The novel was written in 2008 by two ladies. Here's how I imagine it went down: the two ladies were binge-watching Hallmark movies in mid-June, and chatting about Jane Austen, or Anne Bronte more likely, and out of the blue one says to the other, "We could write something better than this!" And so they did. And the end result was that it was made into a movie that's basically a Hallmark rom-dram with better production and a first-rate cast. So I guess they succeeded. My only problem is that they didn't aim very high.

I'm sure there's a genuinely great movie hiding in there somewhere.

I make fun of Hallmark movies, but I've seen my share, and if you've seen one plot you've seen them all. And based on the instincts I picked up from them, I predicted the two main aspects of the movie right off the bat, before they ever even set up one of the aspects as a convoluted mystery to be unwound bit by bit. If you know a little about the story you know that the titular Society is a book club. Well in the whole movie there's a grand total of two scenes of this book club, though they are by far the best bits the movie had to offer.

I expected something like Jane Austen Book Club meets Julie and Julia and all I can say is, don't expect that. There's even less cooking than there is reading. What there is, is drama, and our plucky heroine gently nagging the Society members for crumbs of a story until it's been collected, complete with flashbacks of each significant turn to accompany the explanations. If you've also figured it out for yourself, you get it three times. It's like Nancy Drew on a small British island, but with no lurking danger to give any stakes. Miss Marple, but no murderer to catch.

In short, it spends a lot of time doing very little. And it definitely wishes it were a true story.

The cast is excellent. Many familiar names, and even more familiar faces. All been in better things, yet they all admirably try their very best to instill the half-dead script with some life. What's most apparent is their exertion. Penelope Wilton, Tom Courtenay, Katherine Parkinson, and Lily James hold the movie afloat with their efforts. Matthew Goode and Glen Powell are memorable characters. Michiel Huisman looks handsome with his stubble-beard, and makes sure to have a scene where his shirt is tastefully unbuttoned more than usual.

Nothing too scandalous, this is 1946 after all. If, however, it wanted to be set in 2018, very few changes would have been necessary. There's even a scene where a character uses an old-fashioned version of speaker-phone so he can be hands-free during the conversation. A public proposal feels extremely modern, and in fact most of the romance subplot has no clue or care that it's supposed to be era-accurate. Most unpleasant to me, was the juxtaposition between the fluffy romance, and attempts to portray horrors of WWII with effective dramatic impact. It felt oddly cheap and exploiting.

I spent most of my writing time trying to figure out how to better word the title. It's impossible.

If you like Lily James, that's the best recommendation the movie has to give for itself. It doesn't have much artistic merit or character exploration. Attempts at such come across clumsily. It has no real theme though it does pull out the "family is friends" card near the end. It's simply not quality storytelling. It does, however, have some moments that work emotionally, due to the actors mostly, some lovely landscapes and locations, and plenty of contrived melodrama and romance.

I think I said it best in the beginning: It's a TV movie. Don't expect anything more. It's Hallmark with an extra budget and a fondness for an Americanized, modernized, fantasy version of quaint British living circa mid-1940's. Sound good? Then dig in. It's just potatoes, and potato-peelings.

Death Comes to Pemberly

The only thing I felt like doing after watching this three-hour long adaptation of Jane Austen fan fiction was come here and write a scathing review. But, I also don't want to devote any amount of time to it. So I'll keep it short.

Basically, it's like this: Lizzy (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Darcy (Matthew Rhys) have been happily married for about six years now, and are in the midst of planning their annual ball when a murder on their estate throws a minor kink in the plans. But even worse is that the only suspect is the the bane (or one of many bane's) of Lizzy and Darcy's existence: George Wickham (Matthew Goode). Is the scoundrel Mr. Wickham at least innocent of murder, or will this fanfic by P. D. James take Austen's beloved tale and pull it to pieces for the sake of a dramatic plot? You'll have to see for yourself on the first count, but the second? Absolutely.

Turns out mixing Austen with a courtroom drama only sounds better than mixing Austen with, say, zombies. And at least with zombies there's no chance of taking it seriously...

I admit my curiosity is what pulled me into this. I've seen the fiction of Austen fans played out on screen before, and anything in them that has anything to do with Austen or her stories never, ever fails to make me at least annoyed. But for some reason, with the next one, I feel the curiosity again. Fortunately, I've never felt curiosity over Austen fan novels -- there are so many more of those to choose from!

My curiosity was piqued by two things. First I wondered at how the story would portray Mr. and Mrs. Darcy's married life. In this my disappointment was the most severe. Remember two paragraphs ago when I said "Lizzy and Darcy have been happily married"? Well, I may have used slightly the wrong word there. In fact I should have maybe used the exact opposite word. Even before the murder the two are on edge with each other, but after... good grief. Darcy is mad at Lizzy for trying to use sense around him (apparently) and Lizzy gets it in her head that Darcy regrets marrying her at all, and it seemed true. They yell at each other, and don't listen, then storm off to do rash things in their anger, and Darcy gets the worst of it -- at one point he childishly won't let her hold his hand -- he becomes like he was at the beginning of P&P, except worse because this characterization of him is way off base.

Am I wrong in assuming that these two were supposed to have a happily-ever-after? Or at least they they wouldn't digress back into the flaws of which they had cured each other?

Everything was so off, in fact, that there was no need to worry about the possibility of these characters and this story seep into my imagination of what happens after the last words written in Pride and Prejudice. While the fact that P. D. James wrote fan fiction seems to be great evidence for her being an Austen fan, I still have a hard time believing it with how botched all the characters were. The only two worth a mention of commendation are Lydia (Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman) and Wickham, and those I think must be mostly due to lucky casting.

The second point of my curiosity was the mystery; I wanted to find out if Wickham was a murderer or not (in the mind of P. D. James anyway). And rest assured that this point got its due disappointment as well. The mystery was... not engaging. Unspectacular. I've recently been watching and reading a lot of Agatha Christie, and it's hard to hold a candle to The Queen of Murder, but really, there are many mysteries better than this one -- and readily available in places other than Botched Up Austen Ave.

The talented cast share a hearty laugh -- in spite, or because of being involved in this unfortunate production?

I thought at first I disliked it because of my loyalty to Austen's work, but then I immediately realized that even if it was totally original, it would still be full of contrived drama and unfulfilled mystery. It did have the rare enjoyable moment though, usually in places where I could forget about its connection with Austen. I suppose now I should balance the trashing: The costuming was very nice; everyone looked great, (except in some cases if you were to look at their face) and I particularly liked Lizzy's gowns. The location and scenery were both fine and pretty; the cinematography also. Nothing was special, but was all quality.

But, unless you want to see this whole thing just for a glance at some dresses and a beautiful house, or unless cheap Austen-esque murder mysteries is exactly what you have a hankering for, do yourself a favor and save yourself a wasted three hours -- find some spoilers on the internet! I will even provide them upon request. You don't have to fall for it like I did.

I tried to keep it short; I really did.

He Knew He Was Right

But was he?

He Knew He Was Right is a BBC mini-series of four, fifty-minute long episodes, based on the 1869 novel by Anthony Trollope.

Emily and Colonel Osborne being friendly...

There are three loosely connected plot lines that make up this story. The main one centers on a young happy couple, Louis and Emily Trevelyan (Oliver Dimsdale and Laura Fraser). The conflict gets off to an early start in the first episode when Emily is frequently visited by her godfather Colonel Osborne (Bill Nighy), who has a bad reputation for mischief when it comes to other men's wives. Louis asks Emily to stop seeing him after he hears some gossip going around, but she doesn't want to, as she's done nothing wrong, and doesn't want to appear as if she has by changing her behavior. Louis then begins to suspect her as well, and things escalate quickly from there.

This plot line is honestly pretty annoying. The scenario is rather unrealistic, and it drags on until you wish it would end just so it wouldn't keep interrupting the other two-and-a-half plots. I say "half" because this plot also involves Emily's sister Nora (Christina Cole), and a couple of suitors for her, Hugh Stanbury (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Mr. Glascock (Raymond Coulthard). Not much happens, but it's at least considerably less annoying.

Nora, and Hugh Stanbury

Another story line involves a young lady, Dorothy Stanbury, (Caroline Martin) who goes to visit her old aunt Miss Stanbury (Anna Massey), who takes a fancy to her and tries to arrange a marriage between her and a flirtatious clergyman, Reverend Gibson (David Tennant!) who is interested not so much in her as he is her two thousand pounds. Matthew Goode also makes a  appearance in this plot line.

And lastly, my favorite plot line follows Rev. Gibson and his being chased by two very desperate sisters Arabella and Camilla French (Fenella Woolgar and Claudie Blakley). This plot line is absolutely hilarious. Tennant is the reason I wanted to see this, and he's the main reason I enjoyed it.

Arabella, Rev. Gibson, and Camilla. Seeing Ten with old fashioned hair was very strange...

With the acting, filming costumes and such I have no complaints. The costumes were lovely, the acting wasn't distracting and therefore good, and the filming in general standard, with one exception; every once in a while, a character will breach the fourth wall, speak directly into the camera and explain their thoughts to you. It's a bit strange and awkward, but I wasn't involved in the show enough to care, and actually thought it was amusing, especially when Tennant's character did it.

One of the best things about this series was the opportunity to play "can you recognize that period drama actor?" Practically every character we recognized from somewhere else, and we had a lot of fun trying to figure out where we'd seen them. Like Nora was Mrs. Elton in the 2009 BBC Emma, and Mr. Glascock was Frank Churchill in the 1996 TV version of the same. My favorite though, has to be Fenella Woolgar, who reunited with David Tennant on a Doctor Who, where she played Agatha Christie.

Tennant and Woolgar in "The Unicorn and the Wasp." And yay, the hair's back to normal.

But that's enough trivia, back to the reviewing... actually, there's not much left to say. I thought overall the "main" plot line was worth sitting through in order to see the others, and I did enjoy myself in spite of being slightly irked half the time. In fact, it was a very good cautionary tale, though it seems unlikely that anyone could be as stubborn and ridiculous as some of these characters. I thought it would certainly be worth seeing once... and I was right.

- 3 stars.

Review number two for this challenge!