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| Heavens Above Photo: Studio Canal sourced from the BFI National Archive |
It's slightly wild to think that this curio, leaning back towards the Ealing comedy era, was released in the same year as The Pink Panther. If nothing else, this is a showcase for Peter Sellers' range as he puts in a restrained performance as the Midlands-vowelled vicar Reverend John Smallwood, who finds himself with a parish due to - what else? – a 'clerical error'. His appointment is in the small town of Orbiston Parva, which despite this being the Sixties, is ruled along feudal lines by the Despard family, who also owns the local factory, churning out Tranquilax (“A sedative! A stimulant! A laxative!”). The drama is driven by Smallwood's persistence in being a good sort, who sticks to the Bible, while all around him conspire against him. Redemption is not high on the list of aims in this Boulting Bros comedy, which is fairly bleak in its assessment but the ensemble cast, including Irene Handel and Eric Sykes, are excellent. The ending is decidedly odd but perfect if you've been hooked by the Artemis II mission this week.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, streaming on the BFI from today
If you’ve never given a BFI free trial a go, you could do a lot worse than use it to check out this tension-driven drama which offers a showcase for Rose Byrne’s formidable talents. She plays Linda, a mum who is consumed by anxiety – about her unwell daughter, and, more recently, an enormous hole that has appeared in the ceiling of their home, through which water is pouring, while her husband (Christian Slater) is away on a business trip. Mary Bronstein keeps us with Linda as her mental health spirals, exacerbated by wine, threading some sharp humour throughout, especially courtesy of Conan O’Brien as an acerbic therapist. Unflinching but also surprisingly funny.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, 6.30pm, BBC1, Easter Monday and 7.45pm, BBC3, Thursday, April 9
The hapless inventor and his faithful pal are always a guaranteed treat but Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham have an additional ace up their sleeve for this adventure by bringing back arch-criminal penguin Feathers McGraw). Wallace (seamlessly voiced by Ben Whitehead following the death of the much-loved Peter Sallis in 2017) has, as ever, has come up with a “cracking” invention. In a play on the modern trend for AI-driven helpmates, he creates a “smart gnome” named Norbert (Reese Shearsmith on vocals), who unfortunately has his settings switched to “evil”. The film is peppered with sight gags thanks to Feathers’ silent movie sight gags, as well as great scripting, with a particular emphasis on northern humour that cares not a jot whether American audiences get the joke or not. Among the best is a news reader named Anton Deck and a dual sign on a railway tunnel reading: “Welcome To Yorkshire”, “No parkin”. Gold-plated family entertainment at its finest.
Brooklyn, 10.40pm, BBC1, Tuesday, April 7
A movie just made for incurable romantics, Brooklyn takes the well-worn idea of a woman torn between places and men and gives it a fresh lease of life. John Crowley charts the story of small-town Irish lass Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) who heads for a new life in New York and finds herself struggling to choose between the old and the new and between American Tony (Emory Cohen) and Irishman Jim (Domnhall Gleeson). With old-school romance pumping through its veins, fans of the genre will find this a pleasing indulgence that builds up a head of emotional steam. The film is also beautifully crafted, particularly in terms of the colour palette used by Odile Dicks-Mireaux in the costuming, which helps to underline the emotional transition of Crowley's heroine.
Tenet, 11pm, BBC2, Friday, April 10
Christopher Nolan’s films are rarely straightforward and this tricksy thriller is no exception. It boils down to a bloke – named simply the Protagonist (John David Washington) – who is trying to stop World War III breaking out. The film hinges on time inversion, a neat little device that sees action flowing in reverse, so that bullets can fly backwards into guns and the like. For all its doglegs and pirouettes, this is a spy thriller at heart with the time inversion trick used as much for its stunning visuals in the action scenes as anything else. "Don't try to understand it - just feel it," says someone early on. Good advice.
Four Lions, 11.05pm, Film4, Friday, April 10
Taking the idea of suicide bombing into the arena of comedy is not for the fainthearted but then Brass Eye satirist Chris Morris had never been one to shy away controversy when he made his first foray into film with this surprisingly hilarious debut that would go on to win him a Best Debut BAFTA. Despite the subject matter, there's an old school Ealing feel to a lot of the action as the bungling wannabe terrorists (Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novac, Asher Ali and Adeel Akhtar) plot a mass murder. Exploring the way that the completely ordinary and extremism can often be found walking hand in hand, this is both laugh out loud funny and as serious as a bullet through your artery. If you’re wondering, like I was, what he’s up to these days, his talent agency says he’s “currently working on projects about the Anglo American Coup in Iran in 1953 and the snake oil of dataism and AI” – I’ll certainly be looking out for those.
Soul , 4.15pm, Channel 4, Sunday, April 12
There’s quite a lot going on here, in terms of matters of life and death, for very young viewers but this Pixar animation is still a cocklewarmer. It tells the tale of jazz pianist Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who becomes separated from his soul in an accident, but refuses to go into the Great Beyond, ending up in a sort of limbo instead, known as the Great Before. There, he encounters a young soul – number, 22 (Tina Fey) – who has yet to find her spark. You’ll never guess who is about to help her. Some of the adventure they go on is over-elaborate but the jazzy riff of metaphysics has a certain appeal and the visuals are beautiful in places, particularly in the film’s evocation of New York. After Vengeance Most Fowl, it's also the Americans’ turn to get country-specific gags that don’t translate so well elsewhere.
Animation of a very different sort to finish this week with our short selection. Run Wrake’s Rabbit, which uses a set of stickers from the Fifties intended to help kids learn to read to craft a disturbing little tale. It was a winner at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival. I’m sorry to say that John “Run” Wrake passed away in 2012, but this film is a testimony to his talent.
