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.

Dunkirk (2017)

Stunningly dramatic war film. There’s no let up in the tension, made more extreme by Hans Zimmer’s remarkable music, which – brilliantly – is sometimes indistinguishable from the sound effects. A few things stop it being a masterpiece. The fragmented timelines of the three story threads (it’s a Christopher Nolan film, like the muddled Inception) make it slightly difficult to follow – especially since you cannot easily tell which (masked) Spitfire pilot is which. There’s very little dialogue, so you’re reliant on visual signposting. The characters aren’t as developed as they would be in the superior 1917. Also, the aspect ratio keeps changing, which can be distracting. And I just can’t get along with Kenneth Branagh, whose Commander Bolton has to be a really nice guy as well as a super-tough naval hero.

These gripes aside, it’s incredibly exciting from start to finish. It captures the mad panic of war, if not the blood, guts and pain. But that image of the doomed Spitfire, completely out of fuel and slowly losing height over the coastline, is one that will stay with me.