Last
night my husband and I were perusing the movie selection on Netflix and came
across this movie which I hadn’t realized was made for Netflix (so not sure if
it will also be at the theaters or not, but it was playing in Switzerland as of
early August).
Having
just finished reading the book for the second time, I was more than ready to
stream the film and eager to see how closely the book and movie would resemble
each other.
For
those who aren’t familiar with the plot, the story starts just after WWII in
London where a young, successful journalist and author receives a mysterious
letter from someone who was in possession of a book she once owned (hence, her
name and address were inscribed on the inside cover). This leads to an ongoing
exchange of letters – the mysterious stranger being a resident of the island of
Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands and part of the British Commonwealth which
was occupied by the Nazis during the war. Eventually Juliet (the journalist and
author) becomes so curious about the island and its residents that she decides
to visit the island.
This
is where the book and the movie part ways because the next hour and a half
changes a few details here and there to craft a more tidy Hollywood-style plot:
(Engaged) Girl meets Boy (Pig Farmer); Girl eventually falls in love with Boy (Pig
Farmer); Girl dumps fiancée and proposes to Boy (Pig Farmer). That’s about it
in a nutshell. Oh yeah – there’s also a subplot about one of the residents of
the island who was much respected and revered by all who died a martyr in a
German concentration camp after being sent there for helping one of the escaped
slaves (Todts) on the island.
Sorry
for spoiling the plot, but you’d be better off reading the book since that is
far more interesting than the movie. The movie, as such, is a good film, but I
found the adaptation completely changed the point of view of the book, and was
condensed in such a way as to hurry up and tell the story in two hours, when
really a mini-series would have been more appropriate.
“Downton
Abbey” fans will probably enjoy the film since the cast is like a Who’s Who of
the Crawley households. Lily James (cousin Rose) plays Juliet; Penelope Wilton
(Isobel Crawley) plays Amelia; Matthew Goode (Henry Talbot) plays Juliet’s
publisher, Sidney, and Jessica Brown Findlay (Sybil Crawley) played Elizabeth.
Although I don’t think any of the actors did a bad job, I don’t think I would
have cast many of the above in the roles they played, with the possible
exception of Matthew Goode. He played a perfectly acceptable Sydney, and I
suppose Jessica Brown Findlay was decent as Elizabeth.
Here’s
an excerpt from what Slate.com had to say about the film:
“Guernsey’s screenplay
quickly abandons the book’s letter-writing premise for the sake of getting
Juliet to the island as soon as possible and trims down the society to just a
few members. The result is a less-complete picture of Guernsey under occupation
and more of a mystery, with the missing Elizabeth’s fate at the center of it.
The love triangle is brought to the forefront, too. In fact, the most
interesting deviation from the source material involves Mark, who in the novel
is little more than a Big American Obstacle to Juliet and Dawsey’s inevitable
romance. Here, he’s wisely given a larger role and shaped into a far more
sympathetic character, one who actually aids Juliet on her mission and whose
worst crime is giving Juliet an engagement ring so enormous she’s embarrassed
to be seen wearing it.
That’s not to say that Guernsey, a movie in which
the bad guys are Nazis and the good guys talk very solemnly about the sanctity
of literature, holds any mind-blowing revelations in store. Though Mark is the
most compelling vertex on the love triangle, he’s still the James Marsden to
Dawsey’s Ryan Gosling, and it’s never really in doubt which of them Juliet will
end up with. Still, there’s something reassuring about a movie as conventional
as Guernsey. Unlike the meager potato peel pie of its title, which is
cobbled together from the only rations available to the islanders, the movie
is comfort food through and through, as wholesome and predictable as a
Sunday roast and as sickly sweet as sticky toffee pudding.”
So there you have it- read the book and/or stream the film. Take your pick. You know what my recommendation is.
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