Stay-at-Home Seven: July 23 to 29

Films to stream or watch on TV this week

by Amber Wilkinson

Flow
Flow Photo: Festival de Cannes

Flow, MUBI, streaming now

One of the surprise hits from last year's festivals circuit that also has plenty of mainstream appeal, Gints Zilbalodis' Oscar-winning dialogue free animation follows a cat who embarks on an adventure with an odd assortment or other animals in the wake of a flood that also includes a possessions-obsessed ring-tailed lemur and a gentle giant of a capybara, who come to help each other in unexpected ways. A film about learning to trust others and appreciating the world that surrounds us, that also offers up some melancholic food for thought for older audience members, this is an empathetic all-ages delight. Gints Zilbalodis told us: "I wanted it to feel kind of spiritual and kind of have this grandiosity. And have a sense of history."

Trainspotting, 10.50pm, Film4, Monday, June 23

Danny Boyle's films come at you at the gallop and this blackly comic drama is no exception, starting as it means to go on with Renton (Ewan McGregor) legging it up Princes Street in Edinburgh. Adapted from Irvine Welsh's cult novel, this film about the lives of a group of heroin addicts in the Scottish capital made household names of then youngish stars Robert Carlyle – rarely more scary than is here – McGregor, Kelly Macdonald and the rest. Boyle's brutal bounce has lost little of its impact with the passing of the years. Looking for something to watch? As Renton might say: "Choose this".

Sick Of Myself, 2am, Film4, Thursday, June 26

An acerbic comedy from Kristoffer Borgli that skewers the modern selfie-driven need to be the centre of attention. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp, putting in a magnetic performance) starts to try to vie for the limelight with her artist boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther). Her ruse is a sort of riff on Munchausen's syndrome, which takes us down a body horror route showing the disastrous consequences. Borgli's blackly comic take on all of this suggests we all, in crafting modern society as it is, share some of Signe's culpability.

Past Lives, 10pm, BBC2, Sunday, June 29

Featuring a perfect trio of performances, Celine Song's wonderful debut is rooted in love which goes the distance. When Nora - then named Na Young - migrates from South Korea with her family as a 12-year-old for Canada, she also leaves behind her first crush. Fast-forwarding 12 years, Nora (Greta Lee) is now living in New York and finds a bit of Facebook curiosity leads her to reconnect with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). This is just the start of Song's elegant drama, which will check in once again with the pair after another dozen years have passed and Nora is now married to Jewish American Arthur (John Magaro). Rather than big and blousy moves, Song instead holds the finer facets of love and friendship, hope and nostalgia up to the night where they glitter beguilingly.

North By Northwest, 1.50pm, BBC2, Sunday, June 29 Alfred Hitchcock's pacy thriller stars Cary Grant as an innocent man on the run. Much less sympathetic than your average fugitive, Grant nevertheless ends up making him likeable through the course of the film that grips from its first moments to the last and takes in plenty of American landmarks on the way - from Grand Central Station to Mount Rushmore. Energetic and packed with memorable moments, like that crop duster plane chase, this is among Hitch's finest.

Corpse Bride, 2.35pm, ITV2, Sunday, June 29

Tim Burton may be a bit hit and miss when it comes to live action films - where his visual inventiveness often fails to be matched by substance - but his stop-animation films are a delight. In this slice of gothic goodness, a nervous young man (Johnny Depp) finds himself accidentally married to a corpse (Helena Bonham Carter). Despite the death in the title and its release on Netflix ahead of Halloween, this is a dark comedy with romance at its heart and considerably less scary for little ones than A Nightmare Before Christmas.

The Sisters Brothers, midnight, Sunday June 30 into Monday July 1

Jennie Kermode writes: With a stellar cast and a long-deserved leading role for the underrated John C Reilly, this twisty little Western thriller has questions to ask about loyalty, identity and the relationships we take for granted. It follows the titular brothers, professional assassins, as they travel across the Western plateau in search of a man who is said to owe money to a crime boss, but who may actually be sought after for something very different. Soon everybody wants a slice of the action and the brothers have to ask themselves what it is that they really value most. Although the film sometimes struggles to stay the pace and looks just a little too slick in the hands of Jacques Audiard, there's a lot to recommend it, with all the gunfights, trail philosophy, hard-bitten hustlers and unforgiving landscapes you can eat and some awesome performances too.

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