Their Finest (12A)

ONE of the must-sees of this summer will be Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, a big-budget, massively scaled, no doubt visually spectacular recreation of the Second World War evacuation of Allied troops from the French beaches. In the meantime, Their Finest also has Dunkirk as a theme, though the evacuation has already taken place. It's a far smaller-scale film than Nolan's, undoubtedly made for a snip of the price. But sometimes, small is beautiful.

It’s 1940. London is being rocked by the Blitz. The government is making public information films, but is in need of propaganda, something that will keep the spirits up while the nation is on the back foot. A film about Dunkirk, one of those moments in history when survival felt like victory, would be just the ticket.

Step in Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton), a secretary whose gifts as a writer has brought her to the attention of the ministry of information's film department. She joins chief scriptwriter Buckley (Sam Caflin) in penning a script that, they're told, must have "authenticity informed by optimism". They settle on a tale of two sisters who take their father's boat to Dunkirk to help the evacuation.

Catrin is married to a struggling artist who – in keeping with the times – simply can't compute that she may wish to work herself. She has a similarly difficult time in her new job, where at first she is expected to contribute only what the men refer to as "slop" – women's dialogue. With the male population overseas, wartime Britain has no choice but to allow women to assert themselves, though that battle is far from won; as one of Catrin’s colleagues wryly observes: “A lot of men are scared that we won't go back into our boxes when this is all over."

Ironically, it’s the rudest male on show, the slightly unknowable Buckley, who most acknowledges her talents. And together they set out to fashion a script that will meet the ministry's approval, as well as entice the Americans to join the war and, ideally, include a dog.

The other principal character is Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy), a thespian ham whose career has seen better times, and blames the war – not his own fading charms – for the lack of good parts.

Though his loyal agent (Eddie Marsan) has won him a role in the new Dunkirk film, he refuses to play the "drunken uncle" until a Blitz tragedy forces his hand.

With its film-within-a-film structure, Their Finest is a paean to "the pictures" as well as a celebration of the Blitz spirit. It’s teeming with engaging characters and interweaving storylines, involving war and filmmaking, love and loss, women’s empowerment and thespian melodramatics. Beautifully adapted from Lissa Evans’s novel Their Finest Hour And A Half, it’s evocative, often very funny and at times desperately sad.

Arterton has the perfect presence – warm-hearted and relatable – for a film honouring the heroics of ordinary people. And with his gift for narcissistic tomfoolery, Nighy fits Ambrose like a glove. This pair are surrounded by so many scene-stealers – Marsan, Richard E Grant. Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irons – that there’s barely a mirthless moment.

The Danish director Lone Scherfig shows the same feel for British period and social mores as she did with An Education and The Riot Club. Here, she treads the delicate line between nostalgia and cheesiness, laughter and pathos with enormous skill.

And as much fun as this is, Scherfig doesn’t avoid the reality of the subject, the near misses and tragic arbitrariness of war, with the chastening reminder that during wartime it can still be the most mundane accident that kills you.

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