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| Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers Of The Flower Moon Photo: © 2023 Apple Studios) |
Nomadland, 10.20pm, 4Seven, Tuesday, January 9
Chloé Zhao became only the second woman to lift the Best Director Oscar for her consideration of the new generation of US nomads who, hit by financial constraints, call campervans their home as they move from place to place, picking up work and friendship along the way. Zhao's film has an almost zen sense of calm about it even as we watch Frances McDormand's Fern struggling with both grief and the challenges of her new life. Featuring non-professionals, the film moves at an unhurried pace celebrating those small moments of connection, with nature and with other people, that those involved here would no doubt argue, are far more valuable than possessions. Read what Zhao told us about the music in the film.
The Favourite, 10.55pm, Film4, Wednesday, January 10
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos will be back in UK cinemas this Friday with his latest award-nominated Poor Things. Film4 is showing several of his films this week, including this off-kilter take on the 18th Century court of Queen Anne (played with just the right quantity of black humour and sentiment by Olivia Colman). The Duchess of Marlborough Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and her cousin Abigail (Emma Stone, also in Poor Things) vie to be top dog in the queen's affections. Acidic and expletive-laced, this is not your grandma's costume drama and all the better for it as the actresses spark off one another like flint on, if you'll pardon the pun, stone. Praise is also due to cinematographer Robbie Ryan whose often distorted framing only adds to the film's off-kilter feel. Read what the director and cast said about the film.
Killers Of The Flower Moon, Apple TV+, from Friday, January 12
Martin Scorsese's intricate crime drama notched up a Golden Globe for Lily Gladstone's soulful and measured performance last night and is in the running for a lot more awards before spring. Adapted from David Grann's factual best-seller about the Osage murders in Twenties Oklahoma, the veteran filmmaker uses his tale of small town killings to reflect wider US attitudes towards Indigenous Americans. Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage "pureblood" who after falling for Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest Hale, finds herself and her family squeezed within the settlers' heart of darkness thanks to the oil rights she has. Scorsese has always been adept at presenting evil in its complexity, so we see how greed and stupidity become a deadly blend in Ernest, even as we can also see he is also a victim of sorts, even though he deserves no sympathy. More venal still is his uncle, played by Robert De Niro with an affable self-assured dread. An intense drama that morphs into a procedural, of sorts, beyond the impressive storytelling this is an elegant piece of filmmaking, making use of light, shade and just the right amount of movement to hook us in from first to last, including a final bookend that invites us to consider how America chooses to tell its stories. Read what Scorsese said about the film in Cannes.
The Invisible Man, 9pm, ITV2, Friday, January 12
Leigh Whannell's tense and visceral take on The Invisible Man, reimagines the Doc Griffin's medical student as a high-flying tech guru - and domestic abuser. Avoiding overt violence in the film's opening minutes, Whannell instead lets Elisabeth Moss do the work with body language, her every movement betraying fear as her character Cecilia Kass drugs her controlling fiancé Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and creeps her way from his Fort Knox-style home. Taking refuge with her sister's (Harriet Dyer) friend James (Aldis Hodge), she can't believe it when she's told her abuser is dead... and neither can we. Griffin's invisibility trick is achieved with technology - a high-end camouflage suit that he has which stays on the right side of credibility. The film has a strongly feminist and welcome slant, inviting us to believe Cecilia and share her sense of peril as those around her are more sceptical, while delivering genre thrills thanks to Moss' central performance and tricksy camerawork from Stefan Duscio that uses negative space in the frame to create a sense of threat.
The Lobster, 1.25am, Film4, Saturday, January 13
We don't usually put two films by the same director in this column, but it seems a shame not to highlight this dark little treat from Yorgos Lanthimos, since Film4 is giving his films an outing this week. Released three years before The Favourite, this darkly comic thriller is a dystopian near-future. Colin Farrell stars as divorcee David, who in accordance with the society's rules, must quickly find a new mate at the hotel he's just arrived at or be reincarnated as the lobster of the title. Going on the run, he hooks up with a group of renegades, who have adopted the opposite policy, with experiencing attraction grimly punishable... which makes things difficult when he begins to fall for one of a woman played by Rachel Weisz. Brutally funny in places as a satire of society's approach to love, it is also surprisingly poignant when it comes to the emotion itself. You can also catch Lanthimos' A Killing Of A Sacred Deer at 11.40pm on Thursday.
Captain Underpants, 3.15pm, BBC2, Sunday, January 14
Anarchic animation from David Soren, who was also responsible for speedy snail tale Turbo, sees the director really hit his stride in this story about two boys who hypnotise their teacher and take on evil-doer Dr Poopypants. Silliness is the strength of this film that revels in its schoolyard humour - something that is likely to have your under-sevens in a fit of giggles. Adults, meanwhile, should listen out for the tones of Us and Get Out director Jordan Peele as the voice of school nerd Melvin Sneedly.
In The Earth, 11.20pm, Film4, Monday, January 15
Jennie Kermode writes: Plants talk to each other. It's not something which is widely recognised because it takes place on a very slow timescale and it mostly concerns things like moisture levels, nutrient deposits and insect behaviour which humans don't find very interesting, but roots connected to delicate networks of fungal mycelia down in the soil are always active. They've inspired a number of fictional works, notably playing a role in Game Of Thrones. Ben Wheatley, with a freer hand than usual and doing his own editing, takes viewers, along with a recently bereaved scientist, deep into a patch of forest where such communications have speeded up and very strange things are happening as a result. The scientist is looking for a missing doctor. He finds outcasts and squatters who seem to have been affected by the woods. By the time he understands how, it will be too late, but whether that's for good or ill is ambiguous in a film which interweaves botany, mycology and folklore with human drama. Powered in part by hallucinatory experiences, it incorporates fantastic visual and auditory montages, inviting altered perception as a means to explore truly different ways of thinking. It's not Wheatley's most accessible film but it's one of his best. Stay up late and catch his earlier A Field In England at 1.30am.
This week's short selection is The After, Misan Harriman's debut short, a study of grief, which is in the running for the Best Live Action Short Oscar and available to watch on Netflix.
