Their Finest (2017)

Wartime-set drama (during the Blitz), that's part cap-tip to working women, part acclamation to the power of cinema.Arterton as the lead, Catrin, is hired early on as the sole woman on a small script writing team for the Ministry of Information, looking to the inspire the many at home and Americans abroad into joining the war in one swoop.Arterton is solid enough in her portrayal, and the script nuanced enough to push the stories & plight of women in general with tact -- no grandstanding here -- and she's an entertaining, bright foil to Sam Claflin's lead-writer Buckley.The romantic sub-plots here are a little to predictable, as is the denouement, thought Catrin is interesting enough for these to be passed off as forgivable.The film clearly takes some delight in it's portrayal of old-timey film-making, and the actors working on them (Bill Nighy a deft-hand here as usual).Entertaining, charming stuff here with a nice trim running time and engaging performances. Nothing especially stellar.

It's 1940 and London is under heavy bombardment. Expecting to be a secretary, Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is hired by Ministry of Information to give scripts a female touch. Her 'husband' is a struggling artist with a gimpy leg from the Spanish war. She is given the real story of twin sisters Lily and Rose stealing their father's boat to go to Dunkirk. Once there, she finds the truth is different from the news story. She decides to spin half-truths to her superiors to continue the project. Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) is her impossible head writer and Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy) is an acting diva. As they rush to finish the film, the story gets changed and a relationship develops.The actors are good. The story is touching but like the fictional movie inside the movie, some artificial manipulation starts to show. It has its poignant tear-jerker fun. The big acting moment from Gemma is a half and half proposition where it feels somewhat manufactured although it is very in keeping with the concept of the movie. Gemma is a solid lead dealing with all the emotions and issues. Bill Nighy is terrific as usual. Sam Claflin transitions well. It's all very good.

Lone Scherfig's "Their Finest" is an enjoyable watch, of that there is little doubt, though (or even perhaps because) it features one of cinema's most-surprising plot twists. It is also - it seems to me - a little unsure of what it is really trying to achieve.Though the Director is Danish and the Producers British and American, the book is a British one from Lissa Evans, and the film itself has a very distinct Ealing Comedy-type vibe (if strongly nuanced by death and sadness).Yet at moments it seems to go beyond being "a little film", heading instead in more-epic directions. It is hard to know how that happens, but it somehow does...The work has a flavour of Powell and Pressburger sweeping grandeur about it, hence one wonders if the Hungarian character of Gabriel Baker played by Henry Goodman is actually meant to be Pressburger. This would fit, given that "A Canterbury Tale" from 1944 features a real-life American serviceman Sergeant John Sweet (the goal being to stress the links between Britain and America), just as the film within the film of "Their Finest" - which is being made in an earlier post-Dunkirk phase of the War - features an American pilot in the shape of Carl Lundbeck played by American Jake Lacey.So is this a film about (the pastiches, lies or bendings of the truth demanded by) propaganda film-making? Always assuming such a term can be deployed in relation to something as beautiful as "A Canterbury Tale", or indeed Pressburger's other gems "A Matter of Life and Death" and "Colonel Blimp", to say nothing of Olivier's exquisite version of "Henry V"? Is "Their Finest" a semi-documentary in this sense? All the more since it occasionally presents, or at least alludes to, real-life wartime information films, and it does have a great deal of worthwhile comment to make about the reasons for such films to be made, and the ways in which they are made? Perhaps it is a not-entirely-funny comedy? Bill Nighy's role here would seem to suggest it is intended to be quite funny, and at times it is. But, in the end, there is too much respect for the real-life story to poke more than a hint of fun at the 1940s. Ultimately, that was "our finest hour", and nothing is going to change that view, or approach. But this is also apparently a film about the further chance at the advancement of women that World War II offered (just as had the First World War a couple of decades previously)? Certainly, there is huge emphasis put on this issue here - sometimes to the point of overkill; though it does, for example, allow us a joyous time with the increasingly omnipresent Helen McCrory as Sophie Smith.The biggest star here is probably "the War Effort", that grand and noble purpose occupying such a high proportion of the wartime population of my country, who got on with something (whatever it might be) as houses and streets continued to be demolished by bombing in a pretty random kind of manner (as "Their Finest" in fact indicates rather beautifully).Nevertheless, not quite everyone here is (or really was) a hero, as this piece makes clear with its ambiguous and enigmatic character of Ellis Cole, played by Jack Huston. Cole looks like he might not really be "doing his bit", yet here too there is nuancing, as he clearly had been prepared to step up a few years previously, fighting (presumably for the left) in the Spanish Civil War. Likewise, a World War I veteran alluded to in the film is unable to adjust to the peacetime world and directs his PTSD at the persecution of his twin daughters.My somewhat failing (or flailing) attempt to sum up a few of the threads in this film does much to indicate my state of mind about a piece that seems to slip between several categories without fully emerging into any one of them.Of course, that is by no means a sign that there is nothing worth watching here, and all the more so as Gemma Arterton and Sam Claflin both do well here in a stiff-upper-lip "Brief Encounter" kind of way.So then this is a romantic film as well? There are also pretty compelling cameos by Jeremy Irons, Richard E. Grant and Eddie Marsan to enjoy, and at least a couple of locations so tranquil and beautiful that it reminds us again that Britain was fighting to defend itself and what it held dear, as well as to destroy somebody else's hideous evil...

The film was based on the book and about filmmaking, particularly screen writing. Fictional comedy-drama that is set in London in 1940. While the war tearing apart the nation, some people are not disturbed by it. They are going ahead with their film projects, especially war themed to boost the people's confidence. That's when the new arrival, Mrs. Cole, begins her career as a writer. So her experience working with the scripts, meeting the real people whose story are getting adapted and her gloomy romance, everything lets us know.A nice film and a little different than the majority of the film that came this year. The focus was good. I mean while bombs falling from the sky, all this tale concentrated was film business. Something like 'Argo', but given less preference to the war, except its consequences which diverted their plan in some scenario. So there were many small-small twist and turns. It also gets emotional at one stage. A well written and directed film similar to what the film characters did their best in the story.Gemma was good, but Claflin was totally different, in a good way. As much as I enjoyed, I also thought it should have been even better. Because thematically it was not for everyone. I mean the world war was a good idea, but the filmmaking was not like you are usually familiar with. Besides, it was not a laughing out loud comedy. Between the seriousness of war and fun around making films, the combination was rare and well worked out. Those who love pre 50s, 40s settings in a film would enjoy it for sure. Especially if they like films about films.6/10