What can we say about the Blitz, the air-raid campaign carried out on London by the Nazis in 1940-41? One thing we could say is that it happened almost 80 years ago, and most of those who endured it are now gone. That sounds flippant but itโs actually relevant โ because, for a long time, British cinema wasnโt sure how to treat the wartime spirit, torn between reverence and irreverence. โDonโt take that tone with me, young man. I fought the war for your sort!โ says a grumpy older man in A Hard Dayโs Night, The Beatlesโ breezy comedy from the mid-60s; โI bet youโre sorry you won!โ retorts Ringo Starr. Now, however, the Blitz is ancient history, and can be repurposed without fear of controversy โ first in last yearโs Allied and now in Their Finest, viewing the War Effort through a feminist lens.
Gemma Arterton is Catrin Cole, an aspiring screenwriter hired to co-write a propaganda film based (loosely) on the tale of twin sisters who joined the flotilla of small boats during the Dunkirk evacuation. โObviously we canโt pay you as much as the chaps,โ says the man from the Ministry โ and Catrin, itโs made clear, is there mostly to write โthe slopโ, i.e. the womenโs dialogue, the equivalent (as someone scoffs) of hiring a Jack Russell to write the โWoof woofโs for canine characters. Much of this seems a little overdone, or too on-the-nose โ surely the old gender roles mustโve shifted a little in wartime? โ though one line does hit home, when Catrin is told by her only female colleague that โA lot of men are scared we wonโt go back into our boxes when this is all overโ.
In any case, the feminist angle is only one aspect of this excellent but rather bitty movie โ other aspects including the showbiz angle, the romantic angle and above all the Blitz angle, showing the details of heavily-rationed, increasingly precarious life in the shadow of death. Details are important, says Catrin, โsmall authentic detailsโ like the sistersโ recollection of a dog in a soldierโs rucksack โ and Their Finest also takes care with details, trying to evoke the texture of wartime London. Kids shovel snow, a woman collects for war widows, a station guard calls out to โboner feed [bona fide] passengersโ (as opposed to soldiers, presumably), a man plays his trumpet to raise the spirits of Londoners huddled in a Tube station to escape the bombs. One scene is so weird it can only be based on fact: Catrin staggers through the wreckage after a blast, looks around in horror at the scattered body parts around her, smiles with relief as she realises the โbodiesโ are mannequins โ the bomb hit a clothes shop โ then freezes at the sight of an actual human victim, splattered with blood.
That scene also highlights another theme, the fine line between real life and what looks like real life โ whether the special effects used in movies or indeed movies themselves, which take reality and happily distort it. Catrin and her co-writers โ who include the dashing Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) โ turn the sistersโ real-life adventure into a big-screen crowd-pleaser, now including an American, an inebriated uncle and a heroic soldier named Johnny (sample line: โDonโt be a fool, Johnny, thereโs a sniper out there!โ), and meanwhile the attraction between Tom and Catrin slowly deepens.
Their Finest is itself a crowd-pleaser (that said, thereโs a shocking late twist), blending two surefire elements: everybody loves WWII, and everybody loves the showbiz comedy of actors being actors. As in last yearโs Hail Caesar!, much is made of a dull American trying to keep up with the Brits โ but the star turn belongs to Bill Nighy as a vain, ageing idol, engaged in a constant negotiation for better lines and/or parts. Itโs the kind of role (only tangentially related to the main plot) thatโs designed for a great comic actor to sink his teeth into โ and Nighy does so, making the most of every mini-aria of exasperation and bravely-borne insult to his illustrious person. His cautious response when asked about the veal at his favourite, now much-reduced Italian restaurant โ โItโs notโฆ veal in the pre-war senseโ โ is a thing of beauty.
In a landscape of sequels and superheroes, itโs tempting to overrate this light-hearted drama because itโs witty and grown-up and its characters speak in well-crafted sentences โ but Their Finest doesnโt really cohere, except in the general sense of โA Womanโs Adventures in the Blitzโ. Its pleasures tend to be incidental, like the aforementioned details or a lovely scene where the cast and crew congregate in a Devon pub, Nighyโs character leading the others in a singalong of โWild Mountain Thymeโ while outside Tom and Catrin sit by the water, overlooked by a stunning full moon. Itโs beautiful, though it comes out of nowhere and only semi-fits with the filmโs acerbic revisionism. Was the Blitz quite like this? After 80 years, it hardly matters.
DIRECTED BY Lone Scherfig
STARRING Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy
UK 2017 117 mins
