2 days ago
9
Pick of the week
A Real Pain
How the Holocaust echoes down the generations is the core concern of this deceptively light-hearted comedy drama from writer-director Jesse Eisenberg. He also stars as David, a Jewish American who joins his extrovert cousin Benji (Oscar winner Kieran Culkin) in Poland for a tour of sites associated with the genocide – funded by their beloved late grandmother. The men’s fluctuating relationship is a source of quick-witted humour but also great drama. Benji’s scattershot attempts to honour the traumatic events, alongside the more repressed David’s reluctance to open up to his once-close relative, give the film an emotional pull that’s both historical and personal.
Wednesday 2 April, Disney+
Con Mum
There are plenty of true-crime documentaries out there about people duped into giving away money through catfishing and the like. But what if the grifter is your own mother? Nick Green’s truly gobsmacking film tells the story of pastry chef Graham Hornigold, who was contacted in 2020 by the mum he never knew. Dionne turned out to be a very wealthy entrepreneur – but she only had six months to live, so Graham grabbed at the chance of a parental relationship, however brief. There are many, many twists in this tale of love, manipulation and devastating consequences.
Out now, Netflix
Babes
Pair Broad City’s writer-star Ilana Glazer and the creator of Better Things, Pamela Adlon, and you can guarantee an unabashed, gloriously funny story about women’s lives. Glazer and Michelle Buteau play New York best friends, yoga teacher Eden and dentist Dawn. The latter has just given birth (the scene where her waters break is hilarious) when the former finds out she is pregnant. As the pressures of parenthood and potential single motherhood intensify, their intimate bond – utterly candid, sharply witty – begins to fray.
Saturday 29 March, 1.05pm, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Klokkenluider
For his feature debut, actor turned director Neil Maskell has clearly adopted the off-kilter, darkly comic stylings of his friend and regular collaborator Ben Wheatley. Klokkenluider is the Dutch word for whistleblower, which is what UK government IT guy Ewan (Amit Shah) is. He’s hiding in a Belgian holiday let with his wife Silke (Sura Dohnke), waiting for a journalist to spill the beans to about his world-shattering discovery. Tom Burke and Roger Evans play the minders who join them in a thriller that manages to be unsettling and slyly mundane at the same time.
Saturday 29 March, 11.10pm, Film4
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I’ll Be Right There
Wanda (Edie Falco) is a giver in a family of takers – from her heavily pregnant daughter and recovering addict son to a secret lover who’s only in it for the sex. She could just be an annoying doormat of a character, but in the estimable Falco’s hands she is an engagingly flawed woman who relies on being wanted to give meaning to her life. There aren’t many rough edges in Brendan Walsh’s middle America drama, but it’s finely acted and completely relatable.
Sunday 30 March, 11.35am, 7.15pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Letter to Brezhnev
Chris Bernard’s Liverpool-set romance was one of a string of features funded by Channel 4 in the 1980s that revitalised the moribund British film industry. Like much of the broadcaster’s early content, it’s sparky, politically edged fare, following two young women – jobless Elaine (Alexandra Pigg) and chicken factory worker/force of nature Teresa (Margi Clarke, sister of the film’s writer Frank) – on a night out in the city. They meet two Russian sailors, and while Teresa gets off with Alfred Molina’s Sergei, Elaine falls heavily for Peter (Peter Firth). But love and cold war realities soon collide.
Sunday 30 March, 11.35pm, BBC Two
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
The smoke sauna tradition in Estonia is recognised by Unesco, and Anna Hints’s season-traversing documentary pays due homage to its rituals and idyllic woodland setting. But the female visitors to the isolated cabin are the film’s real focus. In this safe space, they sit and talk – about body image, sex, relationships, family – naked physically but also exposing themselves emotionally. Viewed in a beautiful play of light and steam, it’s a moving insight into troubled individuals given succour through a collective endeavour.
Thursday 3 April, 2.10am, Film4
