Pick of the week
Babylon
Damien “La La Land” Chazelle’s ambitious new drama revisits the 2016 film’s interest in fame, love and broken dreams in LA, but aims for a broader historical sweep. The story of Hollywood in the 20s and 30s is embodied in three characters: Mexican immigrant Manny (Diego Calva); the woman he loves, would-be star Nellie (Margot Robbie); and Brad Pitt’s ageing lead actor Jack. Bravura set-pieces – from an orgiastic party at a studio boss’s mansion, complete with guest elephant, to a slapstick, all-action location shoot – give a sense of the fickle, intoxicating energy of the movie industry, while Pitt and the underused Robbie provide affecting portraits of the casualties that result.
Friday 21 July, 9pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Gandhi
Nowadays, all sorts of films clock in at nearly three hours (the latest Indiana Jones, Avengers: Endgame). But back in 1982, that length was reserved for epic, statement dramas such as Richard Attenborough’s superb biopic of Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi. Covering his life from his early years fighting for the rights of Indians in 1890s South Africa to his shocking assassination in 1948, it touches all the crucial historical bases. And in Ben Kingsley it has a skilled lead actor bringing simple humanity to a stirring, strife-ridden story of nation-building.
Saturday 15 July, 5.20pm, Great! Movies
***
Following
Christopher Nolan’s debut feature from 1998 may be a low-budget noirish drama, but it already has the fractured, flashback-heavy narrative that would become his trademark in the likes of Memento and Tenet. Jeremy Theobald’s would-be writer meets a well-dressed, upper-class man, Cobb (Alex Haw), who turns out to be a burglar. There’s also a young woman (Lucy Russell) in the mix, a femme fatale figure in thrall to a gangster. The mysteries surrounding the trio’s relationships are heightened by the backflips in time in a tantalising tale.
Saturday 15 July, 9pm, Sky Arts
***
Possessor
A superbly unsettling, occasionally gruesome sci-fi thriller from Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, which features a fair bit of his dad’s corporeal horror. Andrea Riseborough is corporate assassin Tasya Vos, who undergoes a surgical procedure to take over the bodies of people connected to her targets. However, she begins to lose control – and her already wobbly grip on reality – when occupying her latest host Colin (Christopher Abbott). Amid increasingly hallucinatory plot twists, Riseborough and Abbott are engrossing as two identities fighting over one body.
Saturday 15 July, 11.20pm, Film4
***
The Deepest Breath
There’s awe-inspiring beauty and the darkest peril in the ocean’s depths. Both feature in Laura McGann’s involving documentary, which tells parallel stories about prodigious Italian free diver Alessia Zecchini and Irish safety diver and coach Stephen Keenan. Through interviews, archive footage and reconstructions, the joys and dangers of competitive free diving in some of the world’s most stunning locations – and the couple’s tragically brief love affair – are brought to light.
Wednesday 19 July, Netflix
***
The Lighthouse
This wonderfully atmospheric yarn of lighthouse-keepers in extremis is a tale right out of the pages of Moby-Dick – with added mermaids. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star as a grizzled old sea dog and his callow assistant, stuck together for four weeks on a remote island where their only other company, seemingly, is the wind, the incessant rain and the odd annoying gull. But isolation can do strange things to a person’s mind … Robert Eggers’s black-and-white two-hander is a fervid, brilliantly realised nightmare, featuring whole-hearted performances by both actors.
Wednesday 19 July, midnight, Film4
***
They Cloned Tyrone
Dipping into conspiracy theories about the secret state pushing drugs in Black communities, Juel Taylor’s stimulating movie adds a post-Get Out political edge to its Blaxploitation-style sci-fi caper. John Boyega’s drug dealer Fontaine joins forces with flashy pimp Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx) and Nancy Drew-reading sex worker Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) – a great comic double act – to investigate when he is shot multiple times but wakes up unharmed the day after. And what are they putting in the fried chicken and hair products that’s making the neighbourhood folk so docile?
Friday 21 July, Netflix
