Their Finest

I saw Their Finest at the cinema yesterday, as I had wanted to for a long time. I guess World War II stories about Britain during the bombings have always interested me in some way. The bomb shelters, seeing people going to work even when their city is in shambles... Examples that come to mind are the beginning of Narnia, the beginning of Peter Pan 2, the beginning of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Atonement, that "are you my mummy" Doctor Who episode… also The Book Thief, which is set in Germany but also applies… you get my point. But Their Finest also has a female protagonist and it involves filmmaking, so it seemed exactly like my cup of tea.

So yes, I finally saw it. And, oh fuck. My feelings. London during the Blitz honestly doesn't seem like the kind of place I'd want to live, but this movie makes you want to stay for a couple more days (or years) with those characters, just making films.

What to say about 'Their Finest', anyway? It's inspiring, it's funny, it's tragic, it fills you with joy and then with sadness, but then it fills you with hope again. It's a human story and it's wonderful. London, 1940. Frequent air raids. Most men are gone to fight in the war. The Ministry of Information employs Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) to help write a script for a film to boost the population's morale and to tell inspiring stories about the fighting front. Now, that's your basic premise. Then we also have Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin), who works with Catrin and has not been drafted because he "could do more for the war effort with a typewriter" and Ambrose Hilliard, played by the wonderful Bill Nighy, who said this about his character: "They were looking for someone to play a chronically self-absorbed actor in his declining years, and they thought of me, which is something that's easier to process on some mornings rather than others." That pretty much sums it up. Also, Bill Nighy is a legend fight me.

Before I start spilling out all the things that I loved, I wanna say one particular thing that I did not. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just say it's something about Catrin's marriage and if you’ve seen it you'll know what I'm talking about. It's not terrible, but it was just lazy writing. I did enjoy the rest of the romance story, though. It was believable and sweet with an unexpected… conclusion, let’s say.

Now to what I loved. I love the score. I love the characters. I love how these people learn to escape the tragedy of war and their problems by helping others escape their own. I love how it portrays the British spirit and how it kinda makes fun of the American's interest in an “ending with more ‘umph’”. I love the message of dealing with grief by doing the things you love. I love seeing the process of writing a script and changing it and then changing it again until it becomes the film it was meant to be since the beginning.  I love how both Ambrose and Catrin learn to make the best out of the opportunity that is given to them only because the young men are gone. That whole "time and talent" speech... holy shit I'm emotional.

That lesbian character

There is a secondary character called Phyl Moore who casually mentions that they’re gay. Let’s talk about her in a bit ~Moore~ depth. So, it’s Britain in the 1940’s and, as we’ve seen in movies like The Imitation Game, life for homosexual people was not easy. This means most of them would have hidden it or they would be prosecuted, castrated or something. So, unlike other elements of the film, the fact that this character’s sexuality is out in the open like that is not really realistic to the time period.

However, this story is fictional, so I’d argue that you can do anything you want with it. Maybe it would have been better to include something to make us see her struggle, but at the same time, I understand that the story centers around other characters and it would have been a bit out of place. Still, I don’t really think that’s necessary because I’m tired of LGBT representation where you only see the tragedy and the suffering. Those kinds of stories are important, don’t get me wrong (Philadelphia, Brokeback Mountain...), but it was refreshing (and empowering) to see a cool lady boss character who just happens to be gay.

And as Rowan Ellis said in a video about representation in historical war movies: “historical accuracy is an opportunity for diversity, not an argument against it”. So I guess my point is I’m happy Their Finest put aside historical accuracy for the sake of representation.

I got a bit blank back there when I had to write about the things that I liked about this film because I liked a lot of things, but honestly what I take away from it is that feeling I described earlier of wanting to stay inside the story and inside the world that had become my home for the previous 2 hours. That is what, for me, makes this a good fucking film.