The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society arrives on Netflix this December 21 and may be the ideal feel good unwind film for the pre-Christmas period.

If you want something easy to watch and to put you in a feel good mood for Christmas, can we recommend you take a look at The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? It’s set after and in (via flashbacks) World War II, and has a strong cast and great scenery (mostly not filmed in Guernsey). Here’s what Netflix has to say about it on their media page:

Directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and based on the best-selling and much loved novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, the film sees Lily James (Downton Abbey, Cinderella) play free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.

The film also stars Michiel Huisman (The Age of Adaline), Glen Powell (Everybody Wants Some, Hidden Figures), Matthew Goode (The Imitation Game, Downton Abbey), Jessica Brown Findlay (Victor Frankenstein, Downton Abbey) and Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd, The Boat That Rocked) with Tom Courtenay (45 Years, Doctor Zhivago) and Penelope Wilton (The BFG, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).

As a film during a war, it largely avoids covering the treatment of islanders during occupation and some may be disappointed at that. In essence it’s a very predictable love story set against a backdrop of a nation desperate to move forward.

If you need a break from the present wrapping and something to watch while you wait for yet more deliveries to arrive, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. It rated around 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, which tells you it’s worth a watch even if not the most challenging of stories.