Chris Knipp
05-06-2017, 09:25 AM
Four World War II films from the UK this year. Lone Scherfig's Their Finest is he first, now playing. Previews of three others.
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GEMMA ATHERTON AND BILL NIGHY IN THEIR FINEST
Brits at war, Chruchill above all
At last count, we know of four British WWII movies that are going to be released this year. These are, in order of release, Lone Scherfig's Their Finest, Jonathan Teplitzky’s Churchill , Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. Their Finest starts things up quietly, with an understatement natural to the Brits (even though Scherfig is Swedish). It's a charming and subtle little romantic comedy or workers in wartime in a non-military capacity: making inspirational movies in England at the height of the war. Focused on a challenged young couple of film writers who revel in each other's wry company, it's enlivened by the dry sparkle of Bill Nihy as a deliciously preening former star past his prime, seedily stylish but only important, if at all, because the able-bodied are away.
With Churchill we move from the everyday to the exceptional. It focuses on the eponymous English leader seen both in public and intimately at the time when he was most challenged.* It shows him under dire pressure in the five days leading up to the D-Day invasion called Operation Overlord - which he tries to block and alter.
Churchill opens in US theaters in a month. My full review of it will appear here then.
Dunkirk comes to US theaters July 21, 2017. It is a grand war movie about a military operation from the ground up: the evacuation of Allied troops from France in May 1940 when the Germans had hemmed them in. Dunkik, with Nolan at the helm, promises to be technically the most accomplished and with luck also the most stirring of the four films, in the vein of Saving Private Ryan and the HBO series Band of Brothers. It will show the action on multiple levels and fronts, with something like the powerful unfolding of the 1962 D-Day film from Cornelius Ryan's book, The Longest Day. The trailer shows how it seeks to thrill us and tug at our heartstrings. Kenneth Brannagh, who started films as a king in battle, is a leader here, along with Mark Rylance, but there are many opportunities for younger actors, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, and younger ones still such as Harry Styles, Jack Lowden, Elliott Tittensor, Kevin Guthrie, Barry Keoghan, Adam Long, and Brian Vernel, among others. This is the one everybody can appreciate. Their Finest is for the Brits. For the Churchil films it would help to know a bit of history, though buffs may be dissatisfied with the slant.
Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, to be released November 24, 2017, is again focused on Churchill, but at the start of the War, when he becomes Prime Minister and must establish authority. This time Gary Oldman plays the role of Churchill, supported by Ben Mendelsohn and with John Hurt in his last performance. Photographs suggest Oldman has done a remarkable physical job of self-transformation. We shall see how well Cox and Oldman duke it out to prove who best embodies the cigar-twirling gentleman, and how well the screenwriters serve them in doing so.
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*For an idea about Churchill's situation at, and after, the D-Day invasion, see an excerpt (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1208521/MAX-HASTINGS-How-Churchill-bullied-D-Da--triumphant-achievement--Americans.html) from Finest Years: Churchill As Warlord by Max Hastings, "How Churchill was bullied into D-Day - his most triumphant achievement - by the Americans."
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/plaxs.jpg
GEMMA ATHERTON AND BILL NIGHY IN THEIR FINEST
Brits at war, Chruchill above all
At last count, we know of four British WWII movies that are going to be released this year. These are, in order of release, Lone Scherfig's Their Finest, Jonathan Teplitzky’s Churchill , Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. Their Finest starts things up quietly, with an understatement natural to the Brits (even though Scherfig is Swedish). It's a charming and subtle little romantic comedy or workers in wartime in a non-military capacity: making inspirational movies in England at the height of the war. Focused on a challenged young couple of film writers who revel in each other's wry company, it's enlivened by the dry sparkle of Bill Nihy as a deliciously preening former star past his prime, seedily stylish but only important, if at all, because the able-bodied are away.
With Churchill we move from the everyday to the exceptional. It focuses on the eponymous English leader seen both in public and intimately at the time when he was most challenged.* It shows him under dire pressure in the five days leading up to the D-Day invasion called Operation Overlord - which he tries to block and alter.
Churchill opens in US theaters in a month. My full review of it will appear here then.
Dunkirk comes to US theaters July 21, 2017. It is a grand war movie about a military operation from the ground up: the evacuation of Allied troops from France in May 1940 when the Germans had hemmed them in. Dunkik, with Nolan at the helm, promises to be technically the most accomplished and with luck also the most stirring of the four films, in the vein of Saving Private Ryan and the HBO series Band of Brothers. It will show the action on multiple levels and fronts, with something like the powerful unfolding of the 1962 D-Day film from Cornelius Ryan's book, The Longest Day. The trailer shows how it seeks to thrill us and tug at our heartstrings. Kenneth Brannagh, who started films as a king in battle, is a leader here, along with Mark Rylance, but there are many opportunities for younger actors, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, and younger ones still such as Harry Styles, Jack Lowden, Elliott Tittensor, Kevin Guthrie, Barry Keoghan, Adam Long, and Brian Vernel, among others. This is the one everybody can appreciate. Their Finest is for the Brits. For the Churchil films it would help to know a bit of history, though buffs may be dissatisfied with the slant.
Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, to be released November 24, 2017, is again focused on Churchill, but at the start of the War, when he becomes Prime Minister and must establish authority. This time Gary Oldman plays the role of Churchill, supported by Ben Mendelsohn and with John Hurt in his last performance. Photographs suggest Oldman has done a remarkable physical job of self-transformation. We shall see how well Cox and Oldman duke it out to prove who best embodies the cigar-twirling gentleman, and how well the screenwriters serve them in doing so.
___________
*For an idea about Churchill's situation at, and after, the D-Day invasion, see an excerpt (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1208521/MAX-HASTINGS-How-Churchill-bullied-D-Da--triumphant-achievement--Americans.html) from Finest Years: Churchill As Warlord by Max Hastings, "How Churchill was bullied into D-Day - his most triumphant achievement - by the Americans."