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3 months ago
50
Pick of the week
Echo Valley
Coming from the writer of Mare of Easttown, Brad Inglesby, it should be no surprise that this satisfying thriller has a strong middle-aged woman at its heart. Julianne Moore plays Kate, who runs a struggling horse-riding centre and is grieving her dead wife. Then her desperate junkie daughter Claire (Sydney Sweeney) turns up asking for money – again – and Kate is reluctantly drawn into a world of drug deals, double-crosses and death. Michael Pearce, director of the edgy Jessie Buckley mystery Beast, is great at withholding information for maximum dramatic effect while posing the moral question: how far would you go to protect your child? The fun here is working out your own answer.
Out now, Apple TV+
The Magnificent Seven
This sturdy, star-riddled 1960 John Sturges western is an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai – which was itself influenced by John Ford and other masters of the genre. Yul Brynner takes the lead role of the experienced gunslinger who cobbles together a ragtag band of mostly American shooters (Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn) to protect a Mexican village from bandits. Initially only in it for the money, the vigilantes end up befriending the locals and finding common cause. Nicely rounded characters give depth to the shoot-em-ups.
Saturday 14 June, 1.55pm, BBC Two
Kidnapped
In 1858 in Bologna, a city state under papal rule, a young Jewish boy, Edgardo (Enea Sala), is taken away by priests. They claim he has been baptised and so must be raised a Christian in Rome. Marco Bellocchio’s period drama is a tragic true story of religious intolerance and a family ripped apart, but it is also an origin story of the secular Italian nation. So we follow one father, Salomone (Fausto Russo Alesi), fearing his impressionable son is slipping away from him, while il pape, Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon), sees his God-given power over his flock collapsing.
Saturday 14 June, 9pm, BBC Four
28 Days Later
Next week sees the cinema release of the third in the dystopian horror series, with the first film’s director and writer, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, reuniting for a new trilogy. Before the franchise runs away with itself, here’s the 2002 original to enjoy relatively unsullied. Cillian Murphy plays hospitalised bicycle courier Jim, who wakes up to find London deserted – apart from a host of rabid, rapid people infected by a virus. His flight through dystopian Britain, alongside Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson’s survivors, is a masterclass in tension and a study of the worst in human nature.
Sunday 15 June, 10.30pm, BBC One
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Walking and Talking
Between television assignments, Nicole Holofcener makes witty, perceptive films about women’s lives, usually set in New York. This 1996 drama was her first, and follows best friends from childhood Amelia (Catherine Keener) and Laura (Anne Heche) as their bond is stress-tested by Laura’s engagement to boyfriend Frank (Todd Field). The title says it all, with the minutiae of female friendship, sex and relationships dissected by the pals in ways that aren’t always that helpful.
Tuesday 17 June, 1.15am, Film4
Joker: Folie à Deux
The box-office success of his supervillain origin story, Joker, was probably a surprise to its creator Todd Phillips. So a sequel is clearly a free hit for him, which explains why he’s gone Broadway or bust with a full-blown musical. It helps that Lady Gaga is on board, carrying the vocal weight as Lee Quinzel, who falls for Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck while both are incarcerated in Arkham State Hospital. Their amour fou is realised in a series of fantastical numbers that are very entertaining, though the mental illness storyline is less effective.
Friday 20 June, 12.05pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
The Entity
At first glance, Sidney J Furie’s 1982 film is just an exploitation flick riding on the coattails of The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror. But between the lines of the woman-in-peril plot, in which Barbara Hershey’s single mother Carla is sexually assaulted by an unseen supernatural assailant, is a story of controlling men. From Ron Silver’s dismissive therapist to the university parapsychologists giddy over a big new case study – and even the invisible creature itself – attempts to force Carla into a corner founder as she fashions her own responses to her trauma.
Friday 20 June, 12.45am, Film4
