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Created Jun 10, 2017 03:00PM PST • Edited Aug 08, 2023 03:14PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Their Finest is an exceptionally fine movie, a post-modern take on the decidedly earnest Greatest Generation, British variety. Unfortunately, it takes exceptional effort to find a theater where it’s playing.

   Speaking of exceptional, Gemma Arterton, Sam Clafin and Bill Nighy are exceptionally fine moviestars. Arterton has exceptionally well-formed lips, from which subtly smart dialogue naturally emerges. Clafin’s refined yet rakish good looks mark him as a post-modern Cary Grant, while Nighy remains perhaps the most exceptionally charismatic actor working today, especially when he gets to play a self-infatuated star.

   Their characters are part of the cast and crew of a Ministry of Information propaganda movie about the evacuation of Dunkirk. Arterton seizes the opportunity to become a screenwriter, and to properly feature female characters in the movie. This all creates ample opportunity for romance, humor and pathos, that last as the Luftwaffe’s death-from-above ravages central London during the Blitz. It’s a heady, sexy concoction.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Behind the scenes

   • Gemma Arterton is equally smart and sexy as an unlikely screenwriter in the man’s world of WWII London. Arterton has matured since her big-budget Prince of Persia days. She’s no less enchanting, but now more wizened.
   • Sam Claflin has charisma to spare, as he demonstrated in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. Leading-man status could be in the offing.
   • Jack Huston underwhelms as a self-absorbed artist, as he did in American Hustle.
   • Helen McCrory jumps offscreen as an almost elderly talent agent. This great actress has 66 credits to her name on IMDb.
   • Eddie Marsan is ultra-sophisticated as a talent agent.
   • Rachael Stirling & Richard E. Grant fulminate effectively as mucky-mucks from the Ministry of Information.
   • Paul Ritter is increasingly engaging as a screenwriter with a secret.
   • Jeremy Irons delivers his usual gravitas as the Secretary of War.

   Actors in “The Nancy Starling”

   • Bill Nighy steals the show as a minor moviestar with a major ego. The role suits him to a tee, being of a piece with his aging rockstar turn in Love Actually.
   • Jake Lacy, Claudia Jessie, Stephanie Hyam, Hubert Burton

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Pity that Their Finest didn’t keep the full title of its source novel. Their Finest Hour and a Half deftly suggests the wit shot through this exceptionally fine film.

    Nonetheless, Their Finest works on several levels, as a home-front war movie, WWII period piece, engaging romance, and not least as a love-letter of sorts to moviemaking. Vain actors, put-upon writers, demanding producers and compromises galore get exposed, and yet the show goes on, as it must.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    Lone Scherfig also directed An Education, another gem set in London and focused on a young woman’s entry into the world.

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.1

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Fierce 2.4

19. Rudeness Salty 2.1

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.9

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0