Their Finest

News to no one, but there is a major nostalgia problem at the movies. And the art house theater, once a bulwark against Hollywood myopia and vapidity, in all but a handful of American cities exclusively delivers the same sort of pandering and auburn-tinged fixes as the big-budget junkyards. The latest simpering nonsense is Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest, two hours of buttery drivel smothered in rancid nostalgia. Based on a novel by Lissa Evans, the film tells the story of fledgling writer Catrin (Gemma Arterton), who teams with and falls for her male superior Tom (Sam Claflin) on a government-sponsored propaganda picture. Adrift in the dross, two lifelines: Bill Nighy, playing a fading and egomaniacal actor as only he could; and the liquid steel of Arterton, an actress so outrageously beautiful she rarely gets credit for her fine acting. They rise above the nostalgic muck, but when will we? D.B.