Kenneth Branagh, who’s recently made the big jump into blockbusters with the enjoyable (and successful) Thor, is back in high demand, over a decade and a half since his superb Hamlet. Fox 2000 is courting the filmmaker for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer.
The story is set in 1946 London following World War II. English writer Juliet Ashton needs a new book idea. Cue a letter from a man she’s never met, one Dawsey Adams, who lives on the island of Guernsey. So begins a letter correspondence that opens both writers’ worlds. A book club, the Guerney Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is born of these letters and used as a way to cope with the tragedy that has just befallen the world.
Four years ago, this writer would have claimed Guernsey as something a bit too feel-good for the director, especially after watching his bare-bones, cynical remake of Sleuth. But that was before the whimsy exercised in Thor felt near-genuine. Blame it on getting soft in his middle age.
Branagh has My Week With Marilyn coming next, in which he will be playing his idol Laurence Olivier [Variety].
What do you think of Guernsey? Is Branagh a good fit for the property?