Gemma’s war work could be her finest yet
GEMMA arterton was talking about how, when men went to war, women went to work. ‘the men were off fighting and suddenly, women were doing jobs that were once the domain of the menfolk,’ the actress told me when we chatted about her great new film, their Finest, in which she plays Catrin, an advertising copywriter hired by a government propaganda film unit during World War II. ‘Soon, women were working in factories, making the bullets and the bombs. at one point, my character says to her husband that he doesn’t have to keep her any more because she earns enough to look after herself,’ Gemma added. the film charts how Catrin moves from her native Wales to London, where she lives with her artist husband. She then meets tom Buckley (played by Hunger Games star Sam Claflin), a film producer loosely based on michael Balcon who, during the war, made dozens of propaganda pictures including Went the Day Well? and the Foreman Went to France. these movies were partly written by Diana morgan, one of the inspirations for Gemma’s character. Before long, Catrin is writing a script about two sisters who use their father’s boat to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk. Bill nighy as a once-famous actor, left behind after his younger colleagues have gone off to war, stars in this heightened technicolor film within the film and he and arterton have some great moments. But there is strong chemistry between the whole cast; and some particularly moving moments with arterton and Claflin. as Lone Scherfig, the film’s director, noted: ‘ Gemma’s very beautiful . . . but this gives her an opportunity to show her quick-wittedness and comic timing in a dramatic role.’ Claflin, too, is on top form. Producers Stephen Woolley and amanda Posey got screenwriter Gaby Chiappe to adapt Lissa evans’s novel their Finest Hour and a Half; and Woolley created a reference reel of footage from war-time pictures from the likes of David Lean, michael Powell and emeric Pressburger. ‘they were popular films that would come with a message,’ Woolley said.
Cinema audiences during the war craved the escapism of movies but, as producer Posey noted: ‘they also wanted an outlet for their grief, so they could weep their hearts out, but be left with hope, in the darkness.’
The film (which I feel is one of the best of the year) works because of impeccable casting across the board — in addition to arterton, Claflin and nighy, rachael Stirling, eddie marsan and Helen McCrory are also, if you’ll forgive me, at their finest.
And although it’s a very British movie, there’s a sense that not being from these shores may actually be an advantage for director Scherfig (a Dane).
‘Perhaps because I’m not english, I am able to express more love ( for the english),’ she said. ‘You english are quite modest, and critical of yourselves. But I can express a pride in england, and a pride in english films, without having any hidden agenda.’
Their Finest will be shown at the toronto International Film Festival next weekend, and it has a gala slot at the BFI London Film Festival on october 14.