London, 1946.  A chance contact lures an attractive young lady writer to a picturesque island in the English Channel to meet its quaint inhabitants and get to the bottom of how and why the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being during the wartime occupation by the Germans. 

She has some other questions: what’s with the potato peel bit?  Why don’t these lovable folks want their story published?  Why won’t they tell me what happened to the mother of the cute little girl?  And should I marry the handsome brooding pig farmer or the not-quite-as-handsome but attractively rich and fun-loving American Air Force officer?

My companion opined that this wartime romance was the chickiest chick flick she’d seen in many a long day.  I go along with that, but while I don’t mind a good old bosom-heave followed by a tearjerk followed by a happy ending, I require redeeming features other than a gorgeous forties fashion-fest and an admittedly sublimely executed exercise in interior design showcasing lavish Art Deco (the London settings) and distressed rural poverty chic (postwar Guernsey). 

I would have said that the spectacular exteriors were a redeeming feature, but then I read that they were mostly shot in Devon, not on Guernsey! 

Sorry if I’m sounding a bit harsh and sarcastic, but I also have to confess to an irrational dislike of lead actress Lily James, and of her propensity for pronouncing ’book’ as ‘berk’.   Yes, like I said, it’s irrational. 

My chick-flick-loving friend had a damned good question:  how did she get all those glorious clothes into that small suitcase?  I had a question of my own, and I suppose I should issue a spoiler alert here, so be warned:  how did the pig farmer know she’d broken it off with the Yank before that ridiculous cliché of an ending?