Pick of the week
East of Eden
“A girl like that doesn’t just fall out of the sky.” Charles Trask has a bad feeling about Cathy Ames, the woman who has arrived, beaten almost to death, on the doorstep of the farm he shares with his brother Adam. But it’s too late – Adam is smitten and therefore doomed. Zoe Kazan is behind this adaptation of John Steinbeck’s study of family, free will and arbitrary evil. Her new twist is a closer focus on Cathy (played with icy sweetness by Florence Pugh). She’s a more ambiguous figure here: not a purely sociopathic destroyer of lives but instead a ruthless survivor at all costs. The script doesn’t always do the ideas justice but there’s still plenty to like.
Netflix, from Thursday 1 October
***
Kill Jackie
This thriller starring Catherine Zeta-Jones ought to be the kind of cartoonish nonsense that, as long as you are willing to leave plausibility concerns at the door, is a source of endless fun. But the writing isn’t quite funny or smart enough for it to attain the brutally hilarious Killing Eve vibe it is clearly aiming for. If you manage your expectations, though, there’s still a good time to be had. Jackie is a dealer who has pivoted from cocaine into art. But assassins the Seven Demons didn’t get the memo: cue an ultraviolent, international game of hide and seek with Jackie as both hunter and quarry.
Prime Video, from Friday 2 October
***
Chilean Mine Rescue: Race Against Time
Sixteen years on, the rescue of 33 miners after 69 days spent trapped at the bottom of the San Jose mine seems even more extraordinary than it did at the time. With testimony from rescuers, relatives who were waiting anxiously and the miners themselves, this three-part series offers what can only be described as a deep dive. The most gripping segments are those detailing the underground survival effort, from the careful rationing of food to the filtering of water through socks. “I felt like I was in another dimension,” recalls one miner.
Disney+, from Saturday 26 September
***
Outside
A sequel of sorts to Netflix’s challenge show Inside (see what they did there?) devised by YouTube wags Sidemen. This show plunges various shrieking, content creators (including the likes of Dani Babes, Chloe Veitch and Lacy) into a forest where they will be tested by a series of daft, gross, infuriating games. There’s £1m up for grabs but the prize fund drains away if contenders can’t resist a few creature comforts. It aims for Squid Game: The Challenge with laughs and ends up more like I’m a Celebrity … with mud.
Netflix, from Monday 28 September
***
The Widower: Til Death Do Us Part
The story of Thomas Randolph is as bizarre as it is disturbing. Over several decades, Randolph married six times. Four of his wives wound up dead. Was he cursed? Or was he a serial killer? This startling documentary tracks the police and press investigation into a man variously described here as “jovial, smart and funny” and “very charming and witty” as he manipulates everyone around him, up to and including police officers. The storytelling is basic and unvarnished but the case itself is wild enough to make that essentially beside the point.
Netflix, from Wednesday 20 September
***
Somebody Knows Something
About 600,000 people are reported missing in the US every year. Many are found but thousands are not. This series follows law enforcement officer turned true-crime influencer Kara Chamberlain as she reopens some cold cases. They range from babies taken from cots to adults who went on holiday and never came back, but Chamberlain is an indefatigable sleuth – and if the mining of these stories for content feels a little queasy, it’s salient to note that Chamberlain herself was kidnapped as a teenager so, for her, the missions feel personal.
Disney+, from Wednesday 20 September
***
Schumacher 94
The 1994 Formula One season saw the first world title for a startlingly self-assured young German called Michael Schumacher. His win in the first grand prix of the season in Brazil was the beginning of an era of domination. This documentary gets the inside track on his ascent and also examines the death of Ayrton Senna, the tragedy that clouded the season and which, as many contributors here suggest, transformed Formula One for ever. The race clips are hair-raising and confirm the suggestion that danger levels had peaked and something needed to change.
Netflix, from Friday 2 October
