5 good romantic movies to watch on Netflix for Valentine’s Day

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This historical romance isn’t exactly a comedy, but it’s got enough heart and light to be anything but a dreary period drama. Bonus: the pretty setting.

It’s hard to do historical romances right. There are so many possible setbacks, from the fact that the past is sometimes anything but romantic, to the problem of our expectations as modern audiences. Can the characters behave in a way that’s realistic to the historical moment the movie is set in, but that we can appreciate and respect? In this movie, they absolutely do.

But The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is not just about romance, even if, at its heart, it is a romance. It’s mostly about family, and the ways family is comprised: blood relations and the people who come into your life along the way, support you, uplift you and then just never leave.

It’s also about finding yourself, or accepting yourself, maybe. This is a complicated subject for women in general, and if we add to that the problems of the time-frame, it gets even more complex. Who are you is one thing, and who society – or even the people close to you, expect you to be, isn’t always the same thing, and breaking free of expectations can be incredibly difficult.

And yet, with witty and intelligent writing, spectacular acting and some beautiful nods to the idea that writing, words, can not just bring people together, but can transform their circumstances, this unorthodox romantic movie does just that, and even sets some new expectations for us along the way.