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Pick of the week
Bring Her Back
Danny and Michael Philippou’s grisly follow-up to their hit horror debut Talk to Me features a performance of malign nervous energy from Sally Hawkins that will give you the heebie-jeebies. Not to mention a scene involving teeth that may have you hiding behind your hands. Hawkins plays Laura, a foster parent – and grieving mother – who takes in Billy Barrett’s 17-year-old Andy and his partially sighted younger stepsister Piper (Sora Wong). She’s already taking care of Oliver (an uncanny Jonah Wren Phillips) who doesn’t speak and is clearly disturbed. What is the far-from-parental Laura up to (there’s a clue in the title) and why is she particularly interested in Piper?
Saturday, 10.20pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
A Clockwork Orange
From Anthony Burgess’s sharp dystopian novel, Stanley Kubrick crafted a bleakly comic film that is simultaneously prescient and dated. It’s centred on Alex (a career-defining role for Malcolm McDowell), a young gang leader who loves “ultraviolence” and Beethoven. The state attempts to rehabilitate him with experimental psychological conditioning – but you can’t keep a good droog down … The film’s sexual politics leave a lot to be desired but the 60s stab at futuristic design still has its charms. Viddy well!
Saturday 28 February, 12.10am, Sky Cinema Greats
Fire Will Come
With his excellent new film Sirât now in cinemas, here’s a chance to catch Óliver Laxe’s previous work. Set in the mountains of Galicia, Spain, it’s a low-key drama that follows Amador (Amador Arias Mon), freed from prison after an arson conviction, who returns to his home, mother Benedicta (Benedicta Sánchez) and three cows. As a study of the seasonal rhythms of rural life it’s hypnotic and soothing, with the taciturn Amador tending the cattle and interacting awkwardly with other locals. That is until a forest fire breaks out. Was he responsible?
Sunday 1 March, 2.10am, Film4
Enduring Love
Science academic Joe (Daniel Craig) and his partner Claire (Samantha Morton), a sculptor, are having a picnic in a field when a balloon crash-lands. The subsequent fatal incident leads to Joe’s life falling apart – due to trauma and guilt but also because Jed (Rhys Ifans), another witness to the event, has become fixated on him. Roger Michell’s absorbing take on the Ian McEwan novel adds thriller elements to a debate about the nature of love, from the selfish gene version to which Joe subscribes, to the inexplicable, intuitive version seen at its most extreme in Jed.
Monday 2 March, 1.30am, Film4
Mars Attacks!
If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Jones with an eagle on his arm, this is the movie for you. Tim Burton’s 1996 film – based on a 1962 trading card series – is a joyful, deeply silly homage to those shonky old sci-fi films that always seemed to feature flying saucers held up by string. When an armada of spaceships arrive from Mars, the preening US president (Jack Nicholson) is keen to be the world’s peacemaker – but the Martians seem keener on dissection than diplomacy.
Wednesday 4 March, 8.40am, 4.10pm, Sky Cinema Greats
Molly vs the Machines
As a tragic tale of teenage suicide, Marc Silver’s documentary would already be a must-watch. It follows Ian Russell, the father of 14-year-old Molly, as he campaigns eloquently against the harmful online content that contributed to her 2017 death, while her friends remember the girl they loved. But there’s also a second, wider strand that relates the rise of unregulated, libertarian social media companies. Their repeated failures to safeguard children, despite full knowledge of the effects, is laid bare by Ian, industry insiders and via a reconstruction of the 2022 inquest into Molly’s death.
Thursday 5 March, 9pm, Channel 4
The Thin Red Line
After 20 years away, the return of Terrence Malick to film-making caused a fervour of anticipation. Luckily, his loose 1998 adaptation of James Jones’s second world war novel is a resplendent, exhilarating experience. The body-strewn progress of a US infantry battalion up a heavily defended Japanese hill on the island of Guadalcanal is interspersed with existential musings by the soldiers – hopes, fears, memories – that speak to a loss of innocence on the battlefield. A ridiculously stacked cast includes Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin.
Friday 6 March, 9pm, Great! Action
