I think that all keen readers have a secret fantasy to own a bookshop, don’t they? (Until they think about the economics of the book industry, the presence of e-books and the competition of supermarkets, that is.) So, like the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a feel-good movie for booklovers. Bill Nighy plays his usual gruff but loveable older man (who becomes more attractive the older he and I both become) and Emily Mortimer plays a sweet, wounded thing who doesn’t deserve such bastardry. The foreshadowing is clunky and so the ending is thoroughly predictable. But it’s a pleasant little thing, that makes you feel like popping into a bookshop to buy a book on the way home.
My rating: 3 stars.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 
Two good choices, yes – Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and then The Bookshop. We must have very similar taste in books and films 🙂
I think Guernsey was in a more interesting era in history and in a more special location. But I invested more emotional involvement in Bookshop.
Agree. I watched it on the plane to Darwin a couple of weeks ago. A nice way to pass the time, but all rather obvious, as you say. (I did like the Lolita bit.) Still the actors were great, and the setting interesting. That always helps with films I find.