Chalet Girl (2011)

Enjoyable romantic comedy directed by Phil Traill. 

Kim (Felicity Jones) is a former skateboarding champion whose mother died in a car accident. Since then, she has been living in semi-poverty with her depressed father (Bill Bailey). She takes a job as a chalet girl in an Austrian ski resort, where her working-class origins place her in stark contrast with her posh co-worker (Tasmin Egerton) and the wealthy family they both work for. Meanwhile, Kim rediscovers her sporting mojo and enters a snowboarding competition…

It’s frothy and very silly, but Felicity Jones is extremely charming. Brooke Shields and Bill Nighy play the parents of the fairly lame male lead (Ed Westwick). 

The issues of class aspiration are never really resolved, but despite that there’s a reasonably satisfying progression to the plot. The script features some witty lines and it’s engaging enough to keep you watching.

The World's End (2013)

Directed by Edgar Wright, this is the third in a loose trilogy that began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz. 

The story concerns five friends, who – encouraged by Gary King (Simon Pegg) – return to their hometown to take part in a nostalgic pub crawl. Unfortunately, Newton Haven has been taken over by blue-blooded aliens. 

Once again, there’s an obsession with small English towns and the way people behave in them. 

The usual team of Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Julia Deakin, Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy all appear, alongside Rosamund Pike and Pierce Brosnan.

It’s not quite as strong as the first two films, perhaps because you know what to expect already. But the performances are all first-rate and there are many funny lines.

Their Finest (2016)

Comedy drama.

A writer named Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is hired by the Ministry of Information in 1940 to help create propaganda films during World War II. She faces sexism and other setbacks, has to deal with the ego of star actor Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy), and develops an up-and-down creative relationship with her co-writer Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin). 

It’s subtle and witty, with the film-within-a-film aspect working extremely well. Initially it has the feel of a “Sunday night TV drama”, but it acquires depth as it develops. Arterton is excellent, conveying an emotional range that you might not expect after seeing her brief appearance as MI6 agent Strawberry Fields in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

An unambitious salesman named Shaun (Simon Pegg) gets caught up in a zombie apocalypse. He has to save his mother (Penelope Wilton), get back with his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) and deal with his friends Ed (Nick Frost), Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran). 

It has a fresh sense of humour, and the jokes never let up. But it also works as a horror drama, utilising all of the tropes associated with that genre in a witty homage to George Romero’s zombie classics.

Love Actually (2003)

Comedy-drama written and directed by Richard Curtis. Utilising an all-star cast, it weaves together several narrative threads with a common theme of love set in the days leading up to Christmas. Some of them work better than others, but the problem with having so many stories running in parallel is that they all get merely superficial treatment. 

I would have liked more detail on the plots involving Colin Firth/Lúcia Moniz (couple fall in love but speak different languages), Hugh Grant/Martine McCutcheon (Prime Minister falls for junior member of staff) and Alan Rickman/Emma Thompson (married managing director is tempted by his secretary). The Bill Nighy story (past-his-prime rocker attempts comeback) is silly but occasionally amusing. However, the threads concerning Keira Knightley (new husband’s best friend is in love with her), Martin Freeman (acts in nude scenes with a girl but becomes paradoxically shy when asking her out) and Kris Marshall (goes to America to find a female who’ll sleep with him) could all have been ditched entirely to let the other parts breathe a little. 

The worst segments involve Liam Neeson’s precocious stepchild – a horribly self-conscious little know-all played by Thomas Sangster. This child is apparently unruffled by the recent death of his mother, but lectures his stepdad on the nature of relationships. There’s also a daft airport scene in which his antics would have probably got him shot by anti-terrorist security guards. 

It was also baffling that the same song (“Love Is All Around”) had to be revived from an earlier Richard Curtis film: Four Weddings and a Funeral. Maybe it was a self-referential joke, but couldn't they just have come up with another love song? There’s no shortage. 

I admire the ambition, and there were some genuinely funny moments, but it ended up being a sprawling mess. Woody Allen could have done much more with the raw material and handled the complex storytelling with greater skill.

The Constant Gardener (2005)

Thriller adapted from the John Le Carre novel, with an emotional dimension you wouldn’t usually expect from that genre. 

Ralph Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a mild-mannered diplomat whose Amnesty International activist wife (Rachel Weisz) is murdered. In investigating her death he learns that she was killed for what she has discovered about the British government’s collaboration with pharmaceutical companies in Africa.

The acting is tremendous all round, and Fiennes and Weisz are completely believable. The former’s sense of loss is unbearable to behold. Bill Nighy plays Sir Bernard Pellegrin at the Foreign Office and Pete Postlethwaite plays the creator of a deadly drug. 

It’s beautifully shot, with the beauty of the African landscapes contrasting against the ugly goings on perpetuated by corporate greed. 

It’s tensely dramatic and desperately sad, but also achingly romantic. That’s a lot to weave together, but director Fernando Meirelles pulls it off.

The Boat That Rocked (2009)

Highly entertaining ensemble comedy written and directed by Richard Curtis.

It focuses on a North Sea pirate radio station, Radio Rock, and the DJs and other characters aboard it. Their adventures are juxtaposed against the government’s attempts to make pirate radio illegal and shut down the whole operation. 

The all-star cast includes Gemma Arterton, Kenneth Branagh, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, Katherine Parkinson and Emma Thompson, but the film is told from the perspective of a teenager, Carl (Tom Sturridge), who joins the floating team and gains the sense of family and identity that he’s been missing. There’s also a thread about him seeking his father, who he’s led to believe is on the boat. 

There are plenty of laughs but there are poignant moments too. And each of the characters is extremely well drawn, so you feel you get to know them all. 

The music is fantastic as you might expect for a film set in 1966–1967. Warm yet unsentimental, it works towards a dramatic and satisfying conclusion.