2 days ago
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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
The Girlfriend
Prime Video; available now
Summed up in a sentence A steamy, incestuous adaptation of an excellent novel that pits an adult son’s new girlfriend against his mother in an ever-more extreme contest.
What our reviewer said “It has lost little of the book’s psychological acuity and retained all of the suspense. Not one to watch with your sons, perhaps, but otherwise – enjoy.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading ‘We had to up the ante’: Robin Wright on her tense TV tale of incest and violence among London’s billionaires
Pick of the rest
The Newsreader
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence The final season of the soapy, dramatic 80s-set Australian series about rival newsreaders.
What our reviewer said “I have a suspicion that if this were a US series, it would be a smash hit.” Hannah J Davies
Death of a Showjumper
Now; available now
Summed up in a sentence A propulsive, gripping, three-part true-crime documentary about a dogged investigation into a young equestrian’s death.
What our reviewer said “Its broader subject matter – the epidemic of violence against women, and the ways such abuse is silenced, minimised and weaponised against the victims themselves – is one of the few that can justify the existence of a series like this.” Rachel Aroesti
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: Ultimate Test
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence The cricket star reboots his inspirational mission to use sport to lift disadvantaged kids out of trouble by starting anew in Liverpool, this time including a girls’ XI.
What our reviewer said “Flintoff’s uniquely nuanced charm, and the important core message Field of Dreams plaintively sends out, still deserve our wholehearted support.” Jack Seale
You may have missed …
Platonic
Apple TV+; available now
Summed up in a sentence The return of Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’s comedy about two mischief-loving midlife friends with a tendency to bicker and plunge into calamity.
What our reviewer said “Platonic ranges from great to decent company. The leads have palpable (nonsexual) chemistry, and it’s always nice to watch something that is putting serious effort into making you laugh.” Rachel Aroesti
Further reading Seth Rogen on going from onscreen slacker to studio boss: ‘People really do scream at each other in Hollywood’
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Rob Reiner return in a still-funny, cameo-studded telling of the hapless band’s final gig.
What our reviewer said “There’s lots of good stuff here, some witty reboots and reworkings of gags from the first film and sprightly update appearances from minor, half-forgotten characters currently residing in the ‘where-are-they-now?’ file.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘Our songs last three minutes but they feel like an hour’: the return of Spinal Tap – an exclusive that goes up to 11!
Pick of the rest
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Supposedly final entry in period TV series movie spin-off, in which the scandal of Lady Mary’s past divorce threatens to upend family harmony.
What our reviewer said “There is something entertainingly outrageous in the pure tongue-in-cheek craziness of this new film’s opening sequence; it could almost count as a dadaist dream sequence. I don’t think anything in the TV show or the movies had anything as mickey-takingly bizarre.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading From lethal sex to gore-soaked dinners: Downton Abbey’s best and worst bits
Islands
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Intriguing noir mystery with a twist in its tale sees a tennis coach played by Sam Riley befriend a married couple at a holiday resort with unnerving results.
What our reviewer said “This is a smart film which pays its audience the compliment of assuming they are intelligent enough to work things out on their own in a drama of sexual tension and dangerously polite encounters, something like Jacques Deray’s The Swimming Pool or Paul Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers.” Peter Bradshaw
Pépé le Moko
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Mysterious and passionately despairing 1937 French noir, with a luminous lead performance from Jean Gabin as the charismatic Parisian criminal hiding out in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers.
What our reviewer said “It is powerful, muscular film-making, one of the great romantic dramas.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming …
The Man in My Basement
In cinemas now; on Disney+ and digital platforms from 26 September
Summed up in a sentence Eerie psychodrama with Willem Dafoe as an unsettling lodger in deeply strange parable adapted from Walter Mosley’s novel.
What our reviewer said “It appears to be a metaphor for racism and capitalism, for exploitation and for the historically hidden violence built into the foundations of ownership. Yet how exactly the metaphor works is unclear; it is like a labyrinth in which characters and audience can get disoriented.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg
Reviewed by Jonathan Haidt
Summed up in a sentence The former deputy PM and Meta exec mounts a defence of Silicon Valley.
What our reviewer said “Clegg’s claim that the evidence of harm is merely correlational is contradicted by dozens of Meta employees, contractors, whistleblowers, and leaked documents.”
Further reading ‘If the people who ran Facebook were monsters, I wouldn’t have worked there’: Nick Clegg on tech bros, Trump and leaving Silicon Valley
Pick of the rest
All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
Reviewed by Dina Nayeri
Summed up in a sentence The Eat Pray Love author’s memoir of her tumultuous relationship with her late partner Rayya.
What our reviewer said “Gilbert’s entire oeuvre tilts at the belief that she is a miracle person, her unrefined output magic.”
Further reading Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert on leaving her marriage for a dying friend: ‘She said, Let’s just live balls to the wall until I die!’
Between the Waves by Tom McTague
Reviewed by Gaby Hinsliff
Summed up in a sentence The long view of Brexit.
What our reviewer said “A great big entertaining sweep of a book, tracing the roots of Britain’s ambiguous relationship with its neighbours back to the end of the second world war.”
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Reviewed by Alex Clark
Summed up in a sentence A Booker-longlisted epic of love, work and family set across India and the US.
What our reviewer said “Desai makes her story both dizzyingly vast and insistently miniature; there is as much at stake in the lives of Vini-Puri, a pair of servant girls not even accorded single-name recognition, as in the grand ambitions of the novel’s title characters.”
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
Reviewed by Sam Leith
Summed up in a sentence Symbology professor Robert Langdon returns in another race-against-time conspiracyfest.
What our reviewer said “The interesting question to ask is not what Brown is doing wrong as a writer, but what he is doing right. Because he’s doing something right …”
You may have missed …
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Reviewed by Edward Posnett
Summed up in a sentence A chance encounter with a leveret changes a woman’s life in this Wainwright prize-winning memoir.
What our reviewer said “Dalton’s book has an urge to restore a sense of the sacred, to meet animals on their own terms, and rewild the human imagination.”
Music
If you only listen to one, make it …
Jade: That’s Showbiz Baby!
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Like a Now That’s What I Call Modern Pop! compilation, the Little Mixer’s debut album gleefully ricochets between gonzo bangers, featherlight disco and heartfelt love songs with a rare panache.
What our reviewer said “In its most bravura moments, That’s Showbiz Baby! sounds like Jade holding a pose breathless in the spotlight after a dazzling turn, no idea how she quite pulled it off, letting pretenders know how it’s done.” Laura Snapes
Further reading ‘I have a daily battle with myself not to go on Ozempic’: Jade Thirlwall on anorexia, protest in pop and life after Little Mix
Pick of the rest
Mark William Lewis: Mark William Lewis
Out now
Summed up in a sentence South-east Londoner Lewis – the first signing to film and TV bellwether A24’s label – creates delicately mournful dirges on this monochromatic second album.
What our reviewer said “[First single Tomorrow Is Perfect] is narcotically familiar and ineffably fresh, a combination of post-ironic simplicity and hyper-sophisticated taste.” Rachel Aroesti
Ed Sheeran: Play
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Featuring collaborations with the likes of Fred Again, Dave and super-producer Ilya, Sheeran’s eighth album returns to radio-slaying pop following 2023’s duo of acoustic mumblings.
What our reviewer said “It’s not a radical reinvention, but you sense an artist pushing softly at boundaries.” Alexis Petridis
Cerys Hafana: Angel
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer returns with their third album in 18 months, a dexterous collection of folk experimentation that celebrates the piano and triple harp.
What our reviewer said “Hafana […] draws from Breton influences, including folk dance rhythms and a call-and-response technique, kan ha diskan […] endlessly inventive.” Jude Rogers
