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| The Secret Agent |
I'm listing these out of day order this week because I can't resist a still from The Secret Agent, which is gorgeous to look at from start to finish. A little bit of chaos then, which is a perfect fit for the film since It’s all going on in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Oscar-nominated political thriller, and mostly in a good way. Wagner Moura takes centrestage as Marcelo, an academic who is on the run and planning to be reunited with his young son. It’s a slippery mix of a movie, featuring a considerable amount of humour alongside unbearable moments of tension, all stewing in a sticky atmosphere of police corruption. Beyond the story, which is as shaggily compelling as fellow Oscar nominee One Battle After Another, the craft on display is eye-popping, from the period costumes to saturated colours caught by cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova, who mostly shot using vintage Panavision lenses.
Beats, streaming on Amazon Prime now
This Scots indie gem has plenty to recommend it, including the perfect pairing casting of Lorn Macdonald – who won a Scots BAFTA for his trouble – and Christian Ortega.They play two teenagers who will stop at nothing to attend their first illegal rave. Set against the backdrop of a political clampdown on the 90s music scene, Brian Welsh and Kieran Hurley do a bang on job of expanding on their stage play, capturing the scene of the time in sharp black and white with a pop of colour in unexpected places. From the high energy performances to a soundtrack that features The Prodigy, Leftfield and Prodigy, it's got its finger on the pulse.
Sweat, 1.30am, Film4, Tuesday, April 14
The interior world of a social media influencer bends and flexes beneath the surface of Magnus von Horn's determinedly ambiguous satire. You might ask who exactly is influencing whom after spending three days in the fastidiously documented world of Sylwia (Magalena Kolesnik). She lays out every inch of her day for her 600,000 followers but finds herself emotionally rocked after a video goes viral. This is a film that questions where performances like this begin and end and to what extent putting your life on full display to the world paradoxically means buttoning up your emotions. Magalena Kolesnik is pitch perfect in the central role keeping her character's warring feelings within touching distance.
Pillion, 10pm, Sky Premiere, Friday, April 17
Pillion is another film that doesn’t hold back in many ways – and certainly not one for all the family. Harry Lighton’s comedy drama focuses on the tentative steps taken by the sweetly compliant Colin (Harry Melling) into the world of BDSM biker culture courtesy of dom Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who he meets in a bar. There’s grappling aplenty but Lighton keeps us with Colin and his transformation as he starts to work out what he really wants. One of the most enjoyable elements of the film is that it is rooted in British peculiarity, from packets of crisps to awkward family dinners. Skarsgård doesn’t get an awful lot to work with this is a showcase for Melling, while Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge also deserve special mention for their excellent comic turns as Colin’s mum and dad.
The Royal Hotel, 11.25pm, BBC1, Friday
Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are backpackers who have picked up a spot of live-in pub work to make ends meet – but their assignment is in the back of beyond, which because this is Australia, means something close to the end of the world. One thing the small town has in spades is toxic masculinity, from the borderline obsessive (and disturbingly nicknamed) Teeth (James Frecheville) to Matty (Toby Wallace), a likely lad who sets his sights on Hanna. In a strong ensemble cast, Daniel Henshall turns in the pick of the performances as volatile heavy drinker Dolly, who emanates a constant sense of threat. Director Kitty Green ramps up the tension and if the second half of the film lacks the control of the first, there’s a lot to be said for crafting a microcosm of mayhem.
Jurassic Park, 7am, Saturday, ITV
CGI monsters are all the rage these days but when the T-Rex in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film stepped on the scene it really was something special. The effects hold up even today in a film that is surprisingly scary for its PG rating. The cast is air tight, featuring Sir Richard Attenborough as an industrialist whose plans for a dino theme park go disastrously wrong - with writer Michael Crichton (being adapted for screen by David Koepp) returning with another cautionary tale about how technology and theme parks are mixed at their peril after the earlier Westworld. Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are the solid supporting cast but it's the dinosaurs that muscle in on the best moments. I always quite enjoyed the tale producer Kathleen Kennedy told about the T-Rex malfunctioning and 'coming alive' when it rained. Crichton would be pleased. Bonus recommendation: Neill is also worth catching in solid crime series Untamed, which is currently streaming on Netflix.
The Promised Land, 11.35pm, BBC4, Saturday
Jennie Kermode writes: European history has been all about the struggle to control land, but there are a handful of places where colonial enthusiasm waned. One of those was Jutland, Demark's perpetually bleak northern peninsula. Cold, marshy, difficult to farm, it was home only to the nomadic Tatere people, whom the Danes went to the trouble of oppressing but for little gain. Then came self-made military man Ludwig van Kahlen, ready to change everything with the aid of the humble potato. This somewhat romanticised account of his life, which adds in not one but two romances along with a dastardly landowner for him to claah with, might have ended up as cartoonish as Braveheart but for a fine central performance by Made Mikkelsen and evocative cinematography by Rasmus Videbæk, which really immerses us in this strange location. A winner at the European Film Awards in 2023, it's well worth catching.
This week’s short selection is David Oesch’s kitchen nightmare Cru (Raw), which focuses on a young chef in a battle of wills. You can read more about his work on his official site, which notes he’s currently working on his first feature, a horror comedy called “LIAR!”... I’ll certainly be looking out for that.
