Their Finest exclusive clip: Gemma Arterton charms Bill Nighy in British wartime drama

Bill Nighy is known as one of Britain’s most charming acting talents, but in this exclusive new clip from upcoming film Their Finest, it’s Nighy who is being charmed, and Gemma Arterton who is doing the charming.

Based on Lissa Evans’ 2009 novel Their Finest Hour and a Half and set in 1940s London, this film-about-a-film follows the efforts of a makeshift cast and crew charged with lifting the spirits of a nation at war.

Nighy plays fading matinee idol Ambrose Hilliard and Arterton is Catrin, a novice screenwriter from Wales.

The cast also includes Sam Claflin (Me Before You, Snow White and The Huntsman) as Catrin’s fellow writer Buckley and Eddie Marsan (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Ray Donovan) as Ambrose’s agent Sammy, while elegant direction is provided by Lone Scherfig (Riot Club, One Day, An Education).

The early word from festival screenings is good: Andrew Barker at Variety called it “a relentlessly charming romantic comedy”, while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times commented, “Their Finest is too understandably serious to be called a romp, yet it has a buoyancy that lifts you.”

Their Finest arrives in UK cinemas on April 21