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| Emma |
Sound Of Metal, 11.05pm, BBC2, Monday, January 27
The ever-reliable Riz Ahmed received multiple, well deserved award nominations for his role in this film , but his inspired performance is just one among many reasons to watch it. He plays a heavy metal drummer touring with his singer/guitarist girlfriend. They're both addicts who have stayed clean by supporting one another and they have an intense, passionate relationship, but their lives are turned upside down when the drummer discovers that he's going deaf. Coerced into rehab on an isolated farm, he initially does all he can to resist the embrace of the Deaf community there (its members all played by deaf actors in a film which is informed throughout by real Deaf people's experiences) but ultimately the change of pace alters the way that he relates to many aspects of life. Brilliant sound design will immerse you completely in a vivid story about communication, identity and independence
The Transporter, 9pm, Film4, Tuesday, January 28
Its reputation may have been dulled by familiarity now, and it is too easily thought of in connection with the weaker entries in a franchise which offered ever diminishing returns, but when the original Transporter burst onto screens in 2002 it was a real game changer, and it’s worth watching afresh today. It’s really the film that launched the career of Jason Statham, who brought that rare combination of action prowess and actual acting ability to bear in combination with a Luc Besson script and Cory Yuen’s gift for creating sensational set pieces. The fight scenes are the best of it but there are some fantastic car chases in there too, and though the plot is rather slender, it’s quite sufficient for a film in which you’ll barely have time to ask questions – or to catch your breath.
Red Sun, 11.05pm, Great! Movies Action, Wednesday, January 29
If you have an interest in Spaghetti Westerns or Japanese cinema, not to mention the strange relationship between them, this curious 1971 film by Terence Young is a must. It may not be the finest example of craft, but bringing together the great Toshirô Mifune with US star Charles Bronson and French legend Alain Delon is something special in itself, and there’s a desperately out of place Ursula Andress providing unintentional comic relief into the bargain. Bronson himself reveals a rarely seen gift for more knowing comedy as his former outlaw and Mifune’s stubbornly dignified ronin team up to go in search of a stolen ceremonial sword. The treatment of indigenous people is about as bad as you’d expect in 1971, but if you’re able to set that aside, there’s a lot to enjoy.
Kind Hearts And Coronets, 11.00am, Film4, Thursday, January 30
How might a man without means improve his lot? This was a question frequently addressed in Ealing comedies, and the solutions offered were not always what might be considered legitimate. Louis (Dennis Price) is not considered legitimate either – he was disowned and disinherited by the wealthy D’Ascoyne family before he was even born, due to disapproval of his beloved mother’s working class status, so after her death he determines that he is going to set things right and make his way to the dukedom by the simple expedient of killing everybody in the line of succession ahead of him. Most of them are played by Alec Guinness. Not a word is wasted in Robert Hamer and John Dighton’s deliciously witty script, and this is a treat from start to finish.
Rebecca, 3.05pm, Talking Pictures TV, Friday, January 31
One of Alfred Hitchock’s most elegant works yet strangely neglected in most considerations of his career, Rebecca is the second of his three Daphne Du Maurier adaptations and the closest to what she created on the page. It’s very much a point-of-view piece and Hitchcock’s real skill is in selling it not just a thriller but as a romance to viewers so beguiled by his style that they easily miss the darker subtext. Joan Fontaine plays the second Mrs De Winter, the otherwise nameless young woman swept of her feet by the older and seemingly much more powerful Maxim (Laurence Olivier), but it’s Judith Anderson who steal the show as the heartbroken Mrs Danvers, a woman who by rights out to be a champion of justice yet finds herself positioned as a villain and, with the great director’s aid, delivers on it magnificently.
Emma, 7.05pm, BBC3, Saturday, February 1
From the shadows of the Gothic we make our way to a pastel-hued, sugar-sweet Regency for Autumn de Wilde’s Oscar-nominated Jane Austen adaptation, the timeless tale of a well-meaning matchmaker completely unable to unravel her own emotions. Anya Taylor-Joy brings her combination of shrewd intelligence and slightly off-centre beauty to a version whose lively teenage antics feel much closer to the reality of the world Austen was trying to depict than most more sober adaptations. The production design is remarkable, reminiscent in places of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, with its perpetually sunny garden landscapes and stately homes that look like cakes. Austen fans may feel some frustration at the underdevelopment of the deeper aspects of the plot – of the darkness to come – but we are, after all, in the company of characters who have no awareness of that.
Belfast, 10pm, BBC2, Sunday, February 2
A semi-autobiographical tale informed by Branagh’s own childhood in the late Sixties, right at the dawn of the Troubles, Belfast is at once a loving portrait of communities which slid out of view as the violence ramped up, and a challenge to conventional narratives about where and how blame should be apportioned. Nine-year-old Buddy is a Protestant boy with a crush on a Catholic girl, a boy whose focus is on getting into scrapes with his pals and inventing new games, even as the adults around him begin to panic, trying to work out how to protect one another as incomprehensible violence comes to their street. It’s all delivered with consummate craft and with a moral confidence that allows the human factor to triumph without dismissing the importance of the political, and as such it’s a history that viewers from all backgrounds might admire.
