Their Finest

Looking for a movie to fill a dull bank holiday afternoon, and not being averse to a rattling good wartime yarn, we decided to give Danish director Lone Scherfig’s latest offering a look. Movies set in the dark days of the 1940s seem to be de rigeur at the moment (with Dunkirk coming down the line later this year) and Their Finest’s stellar cast, plus the promise of “a smart, witty, top-notch comedy” boded well for our afternoon’s entertainment.

Based on the 2009 novel Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans, the film’s action takes place in the London of 1940. Despite applying for a purely secretarial role, Welsh lovely Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) finds herself unexpectedly taken on for a job writing films for the Ministry of Information. She and chief screenwriter Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) are forced into close quarters when working together on a propaganda film for the Ministry of Information about the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. Predictably, the two grow romantically close, but this is wartime and the path of true love cannot be expected to run smoothly…

Essentially, this is a film about film-making. But there are other (to me more interesting) themes. As any self-respecting war movie should, Their Finest - for all its shortcomings - does capture the uncertainty of life during this period. The true-to-life setting (very impressive) is also matched by attitudes to women that it is easy to forget were once prevalent. The casual sexism of the period is flagged up early on with Tom Buckley unapologetically hiring Catrin solely for the purposes of adding a female perspective to the work in hand, basically what amounts to the ability to write “slop”, i.e. women’s dialogue. Yet the film is chock full of women taking on and ably fulfilling traditionally male roles, women who patently had no intention of “climbing back into their boxes” once the war was over. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight we know this is precisely what they were expected to do and it was to take many years before any sort of real equality could be achieved. Even Ellis Cole (played by Jack Huston), Catrin’s ‘husband’, who she claims espouses radical political views and therefore might be expected to be in favour of advancing the female cause, turns out to be just another chauvinist pig who feels his male ego threatened when Catrin takes to her new role with gusto.

There are lots of big names involved in this film. The wonderful Helen McCrory and Rachael Stirling both make an appearance, as do Richard E. Grant and Jeremy Irons, though the latter two parts are so sketchily drawn as to be eminently forgettable. Bill Nighy, perfectly (if somewhat predictably) cast as ageing, narcissistic ex-matinee idol Ambrose Hilliard, is very funny. Arterton is lovely (natch!) but, dare I say it, I found her character pretty boring. In fact, I felt there was a lot of room for further development of all the major figures in the story.

Reviews of Their Finest are generally very positive, particularly those from over the pond. I have a suspicion that there is maybe more of an appetite for this kind of “plucky Brits with their backs to the wall” movie there. One critic from the Detroit News even goes so far as to describe the film as “sizzling with chemistry”. Mmm, I’m not sure this was felt in our cinema, in contrast to the decidedly palpable sizzle that went round the room when watching Allied recently (see last review!). Robbie Collin of the Telegraph also heaps praise, calling Their Finest "sparklingly adapted" and a "handsome, rousing, rigorous entertainment you can’t help but play along with".

For me, though, this was a film that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. I found the ‘romance’ pallid and contrived, the plot a bit flimsy (though Tom’s death under a rogue lighting rig at least rescued it from complete predictability!) and the comedy (it is, after all, billed as such) a bit underwhelming… apart from Bill Nighy who has been allowed to steal the show yet again! As the film ends, with our heroine’s completed movie also coming to a close, Catrin’s neighbour turns to her and says: “watch it a second time and you’ll get more laughs”. Mmm, maybe.

 

*Watch a trailer here: https://youtu.be/id0HEelDIuk