‘Sweet as pie’ Potato Peel film gains good reviews on Netflix release in the US
GLOWING reviews have been published in America, as the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society film is released on Netflix US.
The film, which was adapted from the best-selling novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, was released in the UK in April, but fans in America and Canada have had to wait until last weekend to finally see it on the American streaming service.
And it has gone down well with American reviewers, with Time describing it as ‘sweet as pie’.
‘This is also a love story, most likely featuring the most handsome pig farmer in the history of film and television,’ the reviewer wrote.
‘It’s simply a movie that makes you feel welcome.’
Entertainment Weekly also left a glowing report, with the reviewer giving it a B+.
‘A movie as snug and sweet and congenitally British as a tea cozy,’ she wrote.
‘As much as the war and its shattered aftermath are central to the plot, [Mike] Newell [director] tends to let most of the real ugliness happen tastefully off-screen. Instead, he’s made a sort of gentle, tender-hearted love letter to the romantic ideal of an era; a film whose unwieldy name and sad lack of scratch-and-sniff on all those sweeping seaside vistas is by far the most challenging thing about it.’
The reviewer for the LA Times did lament that viewers in the United States would be unable to see the film on the big screen, instead settling for their home televisions.
‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an old-school, old-fashioned entertainment, a romantic drama bursting with scenic vistas and earnest charm that contains just enough mystery to keep us involved,’ he wrote.
‘“Guernsey” may not qualify as demanding cinema but it is eminently satisfying, and if in the final analysis it must be seen on home screens, that is preferable to no screens at all.’
On film review website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has been classed as ‘fresh’, with 79% positive rating from critics.
There has also been nearly 500 reviews from members of the public, giving the film an average rating of four out of five.
The film has also been released on some of Netflix’s European services, but is not yet available on the UK one.
The DVD will be released in the UK on 27 August.
