The Infallible Maxims of William Wintour (film)

The Infallible Maxims of William Wintour
Directed by	David Granby
Screenplay by	David and Louise Granby
Music by	Gregory Dreyfus
Production company	Kingfisher Studios (Lumeniola)
Release date	May 18, 2024
Running time	122 minutes
Country	Libertas Omnium Maximus
Language	English
Budget	M$39.6 million
Box office	M$119.9 million

The Infallible Maxims of William Wintour is a 2025 black-comedy drama film written by David and Louise Granby and directed by David Granby. It stars Ed Turner and Hugh Hunt, with Vanessa Dunn, Lawrence Barber, and Jonathan Durant in supporting roles. The film follows the contentious friendship and misadventures of pseudointellectual army deserter William and naïve slacker George as they attempt to navigate the post-Great War world and make their fortune, no matter the ethical cost. The film received numerous accolades during its theatrical release for the quality of its acting, direction, and original soundtrack. The film grossed around $120 million on a $40 million budget, making it one of the highest-grossing mid-budget Maximusian films of the year.

Plot

In 1961, oblivious to the growing political tensions worldwide, George Graves (Turner), a 17-year-old unemployed Augustiner, enlists in the army to impress longtime sweetheart, Catherine (Dunn), who refuses to go steady with him over his lackluster work ethic. Weeks after enlistment, war breaks out, and George is set to be deployed to defend the Maximusian archipelago from invading Daryan forces. During basic training, George befriends William Walker (Hunt), a fast-talking conscript known for his rambling, pseudo-philosophical musings, which George latches onto as genuine wisdom. Together, the two plot to be honorably discharged or differed from service, unsuccessfully faking various injuries and disabilities, while George records William’s pontifications in a notebook. The night before shipping out, William accidentally shoots George in the foot, leading to a falling out between the two and George’s reassignment to a clerical position in Litudinem. Fearing a court martial, William goes AWOL, fleeing to Sarena in the middle of the night.

After the war, George is unhappily married to Catherine, living on a meager military pension and walking with a slight limp because of the shooting years before. One day, Catherine asks for a divorce, which George agrees to. As he is packing his bags, George comes across his old basic training notebook. Recalling some of William’s dubious tidbits, he decides to book passage to Sarena, following in the footsteps of his old friend. In Altina, George quickly burns through the last of his savings and is unable to hold down steady work, but recognizes William in a fly-paper advertisement, now operating a construction firm under the pseudonym "William Wintour." George seeks out William and the two mend fences over dinner after being reunited, with George frequently quoting some of William's mantras from back in basic training.. William explains that he has amassed considerable fortune on the back of the international effort to rebuild the Southern Maritimes, adopting cutthroat, unscrupulous business strategies, overbilling international investors and government endowments, and capitalizing on a general lack of oversight to skirt building regulations. William recruits George to the company and tasks his old friend with exaggerating his past military service to make the firm seem more legitimate and attractive to Maximusian investors. George quickly becomes the face of the company, securing cushy contracts under the guise of a hardworking expatriated war hero, while William grows distant and standoffish, but continues to coach his longtime friend from the sidelines.

By 1976, the company is highly profitable and the friends have become extremely wealthy. Seemingly on a whim, William purchases several acres of farmland in Peoria. Although his regular philosophical diatribes continue, George grapples with the mounting realization that William’s ruminations are largely vacuous and banal, though he does not admit this realization to his friend. Days later, George and William are brought in for questioning by the authorities on suspicion of illegal business practices. Unbeknownst to the duo, the diligent and straight-laced investigator Fournier (Barber) has been building a case against the company for some time. Believing George to be nothing more than a figurehead for the business, Fournier press him, but he is unwilling to testify against his business partner. William, on the other hand, immediately rolls over, naming George as the sole mastermind behind the company’s fraudulent activities and agrees to testify in exchange for clemency. Before the trial, Sarena officials deduce that "William Wintour" is, in fact, an alias bolstered by forged documentation, and plan to arrest him, but William catches wind and goes on the run. Attempting to flee to Caxcana, William is killed when his plane, a small air taxi, crashes into the Albarine Sea during a storm. To his surprise, George is bequeathed William’s entire estate, but has most of his assets seized when he is found guilty of a lesser fraud charge and repatriated to Libertas Omnium Maximus to serve out an 18 month sentence.

In the epilogue, George emerges from prison with nothing but the deed to William’s Peoria property and his notebook. As he boards a bus headed to Perra and settles in for the long journey, George begins gleefully shredding pages from the notebook, smiling as he destroys the hackneyed maxims of his late friend.

Cast

Ed Turner as George Graves, a credulous underachiever who joins the army to impress his sweetheart.

Hugh Hunt as William "Wintour" Walker, an army deserter and con-man who hides manipulative tendencies behind the veneer of a misunderstood intellectual.

Vanessa Dunn as Catherine Graves, George's sweetheart.

Lawrence Barber as Fournier, an idealistic constable committed to putting Wintour behind bars.

Jonathan Durant as Sergeant, a disciplinarian drill instructor.

Production

The Granby's reportedly conceived of the film's core themes after a negative encounter with a member of Lumeniola's high-society who, according to Louise, "waxed poetic and at great length, but never seemed to actually offer up anything of substance," such to the point where the two were unsure of how he had managed to maintain any amount of social significance. The couple wrote the film's screenplay in a single week, and the film was quickly picked up by Kingfisher Studios, which is co-owned by David Granby. A mid-budget film by Maximusian film standards, most production costs went to hiring big-name actors like Hugh Hunt and Lawrence Barber. Although David expressed his desire to have the lead roles filled by less established actors, other producers were convinced that at least one household-name figure would be needed in the film's billing to attract audiences, given the film's lack of major action sequences or special effects. Hunt, who has historically played heartthrobs and action heroes, was chosen to portray Wintour both because of his stardom and because Granby believed the generally good nature of his past roles would lull audiences into a false sense of trust. The movie took about 12 months to film because director David Granby wanted to film on location as frequently as possible, though, for tax purposes, most scenes set in Sarena were, instead, filmed in the Maximusian Outlying Islands.