Review of Their Finest (2017) by Matt C — 24 Apr 2017

I think it's pretty safe to say that when it comes to movies about movies, I gravitate towards the cynical and dark takes on the matters. It's not like I was expecting Their Finest to be Maps to the Stars, but I guess I also wasn't prepared for something this safe.

Safe movies aren't inherently worse than daring ones, but safe movies are usually also so concerned with being likable that they're never more than slight. As it becomes more and more of a typical romantic comedy, its sweetness begins to feel like shotgunning a barrel of Splenda--that is, it's a bit nice for a hot second, but it quickly becomes too much and has no lasting effect on you whatsoever, inside or out.

It's exactly what you'd expect, until its tonal issues apex in the third act. But yay for Bill Nighy, I guess! Based on the novel Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans, the movie follows Catrin (Gemma Arterton), a newly appointed script doctor who is commissioned to work with Tom (Sam Claflin) and others on a propaganda film about Dunkirk in the midst of World War II with the intention of boosting Britain's morale.

Entitled The Nancy Starling, it inevitably brings about a bevy of silly troubles and shenanigans for those involved, including adjusting the film for studio notes and dealing with an exaggeratedly horrendous actor named Carl (Jake Lacy).

In theory, this could be an enjoyable, interesting story, but it's done in the safest way possible save for a few fleeting f-bombs and a very brief sex scene. Oh yeah, and there's an obligatory romantic tension between the female and male leads.

This is a movie that, as stated earlier, doesn't give much to chew on. It's pure fluff, pure and simple. If you're predisposed to liking chewing on a bed comforter instead of something meatier, then you may enjoy it.

I, however, simply don't care for this type of fare executed in this way. It's a movie that relies on its actors throughout, who generally do a good job. Bill Nighy is the brightest highlight here as a seasoned actor in the film-within-a-film and Arterton and Claflin are cute, but their characters aren't well developed.

The movie doesn't have much of a sense of place, and it's a bit surprising that I wasn't able to project the endless World War II content that media has provided me onto Their Finest. Because it's all so light to the touch and has no stakes, the disposability of it all gives way to disinterest and later boredom.

That being said, it has its fleeting moments of "heh, that's kinda clever" or "ah, this is kinda nice", but those become grating after a while before being topped off by a colossally misplaced final shift in the final act.

The movie is 117 minutes, a decision that lies beyond me. In one of the film's many moments of a character's musing, Claflin says that movies have to be worth the hour and a half that the viewer has to give up in order to see it.

Their Finest is two hours, though, and whether it would have worked decently over 90 minutes (at most) remains to be seen. 3.9/10, really bad, far below average, D+, etc.