Their Finest
Cert: 12A / 117 mins / Dir. Lone Scherfig / Trailer
BRIT BILL LOCKED ON COMIC COLLISION COURSE!
A TOP TEAM OF Tinsel-Town technicians has been furiously working against the clock to bring Bill Nighy safely out of auto-pilot, it has been revealed. The alarm was raised during the British charmer's latest gentle-drama, Their Finest, in which onlookers had noticed his trademark head-flick was more pronounced than usual, and his deadpan wryness had been recycled from almost every other performance he's given over the last twenty years.
Hollywood boffins were hoping to avert disaster by relying on the film's co-pilot, Gemma Arterton, to steer the film to safety until they noticed that the Tamara Drewe protégé was also coasting unblinkingly along, and at an alarmingly earlier point in her career. Further inspection revealed that the Nighy model actually has no other setting, an issue which has been raised with its manufacturer.
The Surrey-born thespian's love of low-maintenance comedy roles has been common knowledge to industry insiders since his breakthrough appearance in Love Actually, in which his quasi-absent minded persona was juxtaposed into a faded rock star for comic effect. But since Richard Curtis was ostensibly left in charge of the star's appearances, critics and audiences alike are worried that comedy/drama dual-carriageway of Bill's acting career will soon merge into a single-lane ring-road. But with no exits.
Concerns about Nighy's ability to appropriately choose roles were voiced during the star's previous comedic outing, Dad's Army, in which the veteran actor completed a 100 minute character cover-version without once performing as anyone other than Bill Nighy™. When asked if he could justify making these choices in the 21st century, the 67yr old reportedly replied "Yeah, but the money..?".
Meanwhile, BBC Films has claimed they have no choice but to let the 117-minute litany of earnest tweeness and irony-free faux spiritual propaganda run its course, hoping for as few casualties as possible in the process. The corporation's legal team has since admitted that Their Finest's theatrical May release-date will will ensure that the subsequent DVD has dropped to around £3 in time for next year's Mother's Day in-store displays, a position it will then inhabit permanently.
One studio insider told us "I don't know what we'll do if Bill Nighy actually crashes this time. Well, other than offer his planned future roles to Jim Broadbent. Obviously."
My Week With Marilyn, Singin' In The Rain, Inglourious Basterds, Atonement.
Not unless you need to see the film immediately.
It's sort of a Sunday-afternoon-DVD, to be fair.
Just about, although I suspect it's taking massive liberties with the actual events which inspired it to create a neat story (not completely un-ironic considering the story is about a film company taking massive liberties with actual events to create a neat story).
No, but this is a strong cast, to be fair.
Despite my sarcasm.
Nah.
There is.
It's slowed (and therefore pitched) down a little, but it's there.
Level 2: In case you hadn't picked it up, Bill Nighy is in this film. No, really.
He was also in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest alongside Keira 'Sabé' Knightley.
It's actually not a bad film, but it's slightly forgettable, completely twee and infuriatingly self-satisfied. And I just couldn't give Nighy a free ride on this one.
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Heh. Bill Nighy will always be the faded boozy theatre actor/reluctant sleuth Charles Paris to me. And if that part wasn't written for him, it should have been. It sounds like he's taken to being Paris on the screen too.
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