This film’s semi-masticated mouthful of a title is a useful flag. Some will find the chintzy fussiness of it insufferable. To those people I say, trust your instincts. This film is not for you. Others, evidently individuals blessed with a higher tolerance of whimsy than I could ever dream of, will forgive the unwieldy word soup. But even fans of the source novel, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, might struggle with this photogenic but laboured adaptation.
The acting style is in large print; the plodding storytelling relies on large chunks of exposition. And while the Guernsey tourist board couldn’t hope for a better advertisement (the fact that it was largely shot in Cornwall and Devon notwithstanding), the growing passion between writer Juliet Ashton (Lily James) and Guernsey pig farmer Dawsey (Michiel Huisman) fails to take root in fertile soil.
In a film plagued by hit-and-miss casting, Dutch heartthrob Huisman, best known for wielding a sword in the service of the Mother of Dragons in Game of Thrones, is a particularly awkward choice. His pig wrangling is convincing but his received pronunciation English, rigid as a picket fence, doesn’t quite conceal the distracting hint of his original accent.
