The Crazy Chris Website
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Their Finest: the sort of film that's been done before...

17/4/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Yes, we all know the tools and special effects available to filmmakers these days are superior to the ones available one generation ago, let alone two. But did Their Finest really have to make light of that, with deliberately lame cinematography to underline the distinct lack of high definition video during the Second World War? It was, at least, a source of humour, at least for a decent portion of the unassuming audience at the particular screening I attended, as was the equally deliberating bad acting of Carl Lundbeck (Jake Lacy), an armed forces man with no previous acting credits. This is, in effect, celebrity casting, 1940s Ministry of Information style.
 
What we have is a movie about a movie, albeit a fictional one. The customary note came up towards the end of the credits about all events (emphasis mine) as well as people and places to be fictional, and any correlation to the real world is merely coincidental. Goodness me. World War Two was a piece of fiction?! The movie in question was purposefully commissioned as propaganda, to boost the morale of the general population even as the Blitz was going on. Matters are made more complicated by the sudden deaths of certain key figures in the filmmaking process, mostly (that is, not universally) thanks to the Luftwaffe.
 
Just as it was decided by the filmmakers of what I will call Project Propaganda that its ‘hero’, Johnnie (Hubert Burton), must survive to the end, so the filmmakers of Their Finest saw to it that Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) survives against highly improbable odds. She just happens to have lost her temper at a Ministry of Information figure and worked through the night, so her house gets bombed while she is at the office. She also survives another direct hit, apparently in broad daylight. So it’s her love interest, Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) who doesn’t make it to the end credits.
 
There’s some stuff about (lack of) equal pay, a topic Arterton has covered before, taking on the lead role of Rita O’Grady in the stage version of Made in Dagenham. And there are bits about how all the men (yep, every single one, allegedly) are terrified that women who have stepped up to the plate during the war effort won’t be put back in their boxes, whatever that means.
 
How interesting, then, given the strong feminist perspective, that Bill Nighy’s character, the slightly absurdly named Ambrose Hilliard (presumably a stage name), the epitome of male pomp and ceremony, is the one to raise the most laughs. Hilliard’s ‘Uncle Frank’ is the main supporting role in Project Propaganda, and the leads are taken by men; ‘Johnnie’, or Wyndham Best as the character playing the hero is called (this is as confusing as it comes across), and Carl Lundbeck (Jake Lacy). Does the film (not so much the film about the film, but the film itself) shoot (as it were) itself in the foot?
 
A war film whose central character triumphs over adversity? This has been done before. Bleurgh.
 
Two stars
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    London lad, loving life and all that it has to offer.

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016

Site powered by Weebly. Managed by Easy Internet Solutions LTD
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact