‘Summerland’ Review: Gemma Arterton’s Rich Performance Bolsters Somewhat Soapy WWII Drama

Tucked in her seaside cottage, clattering away at her typewriter, and smoking like a chimney, Alice Lamb (Gemma Arterton) doesn’t fit in with her buttoned-up small-town Kent neighbors.

Perhaps it’s the townsfolk’s predilection for referring to her as a witch? Or the punk kids who shove trash into her mailbox and run off screaming? Maybe the elder statesman who tells Alice she’s all but asking to be shunned by, what, simply existing? Alice is an outsider and disinterested in playing nice with her community; that’s the sort of thing that would bother her neighbors even during regular times, but Alice is the product of Jessica Swale’s “Summerland,” set in the heat of World War II, even if the bombs are falling miles and miles away.Alice’s isn’t helped by her own disdain for the world around her — “That’s right, we’ve

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