Their Finest (Lone Scherfig, 2016)

In 1940, while the bombs fall on London, a young woman fights her own quiet war against the male-dominated working world within the Ministry of Information. After being assigned to the propaganda film department, she gradually establishes herself as the real author behind a full-length feature about the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Scherfig's film is as restrained as we imagine the British society of the time to have been, although this is also partly a result of the propaganda we've been subjected to about the era. This includes the humour, which is gentle, mostly poking fun at Bill Nighy as a fading, vainglorious actor, and means that the drama of the setting isn't compromised. In the lead role, Gemma Arterton reveals real acting talent for perhaps the first time: hers is a performance of subtlety and dignity in the face of the challenges that she's put through, and Sam Claflin as her cynical script-writing sparring partner is a perfect foil to her character. It does go through a somewhat gratuitous plot twist towards the end and sentimentalise the power of film, but it seems churlish to make too much of these shortcomings when there is such empathy behind it all.

6/10