Pick of the week
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
In her previous two movies, indie director Jane Schoenbrun explored the uncanny spaces we inhabit between the internet, TV and our daily lives. For her dark and delirious new drama, she delves into movies and their unsettling hold on us. Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder plays Kris, an up-and-coming queer film-maker hired to reboot Camp Miasma, a “problematic” Friday the 13th-style slasher horror franchise. For research, she visits the original’s reclusive star, Billy (Gillian Anderson), who, bizarrely, lives in the film’s abandoned summer camp location. As the women get closer, reality and Camp Miasma’s grisly fiction start to blur in a giddy, psychosexual blowout.
Friday 2 October, Mubi
***
The Moment
It’s hard to tell whether Charli xcx’s mockumentary is a way of summing up her world-exploding “Brat summer” of 2024 or razing it all to the ground. As it counts down to a big arena tour and its accompanying concert film, Aidan Zamiri’s tale flips between the musician being overwhelmed by her sudden celebrity and a string of comically terrible Spinal Tap-ish decisions (the Brat credit card for gay people is a highlight). Throughout, Charli does a good job of keeping us guessing as to what’s a fact and what’s not.
Saturday 26 September, 6.35am, 1.30pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Nickel Boys
Based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, RaMell Ross’s sublime drama is, unusually, shot from the first-person point of view. It’s a bold move that pays off, as we’re immersed in the life of Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a Black student raised by his grandma (a standout Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) in early 60s Florida. A miscarriage of justice sends him to a brutal, segregated reform school called the Nickel Academy. His only respite is a friendship with another inmate, Turner (Brandon Wilson), as he tries to work out how to live in a world intent on beating him down.
Monday 28 September, 11.05pm, BBC Two
***
Immaculate
This ripe piece of nunsploitation from Michael Mohan owes a lot to Rosemary’s Baby – but the evil forces at play here are entirely Christian. Controversy magnet Sydney Sweeney plays a young American who arrives at a rural Italian convent to take her vows. Soon, however, she falls mysteriously pregnant. “It’s a miracle,” proclaim the mother superior, doctor and priests (including Money Heist’s Álvaro Morte) – but how did this virgin birth occur? With creaky doors and creepy sisters, it’s classic, bloodily accomplished horror.
Monday 28 September, midnight, BBC Three
***
Better Man
Michael Gracey’s film about Robbie Williams sticks to the music biopic template of rise-fall-redemption, save for one aspect: he’s portrayed as a chimp. Manifesting Take That’s cheeky chappy as an ape provides a pleasingly surreal edge to the singer’s lairy tale – as well as giving Williams, who narrates, the chance to be amusingly self-deprecating. A fun, vibrant and silly film, with one set-piece, Rock DJ on London’s Regent Street, that’s the equal of La La Land’s freeway number.
Thursday 1 October, 8.30am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne gets back with his Sideways lead, Paul Giamatti, for a witty, bittersweet story. The actor is on fine misanthropic form as Paul Hunham, a widely disliked classics teacher at a New England boys’ boarding school in 1970. He is ordered to stay on site over the Christmas holidays to supervise the children who can’t go home, most problematically Dominic Sessa’s smart, sardonic teenager Angus. Also stuck there is grieving canteen manager Mary (an Oscar-winning Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Forced into uncomfortable proximity, the three slowly eke out an understanding.
Thursday 1 October, 9pm, Film4
***
The Last First: Winter K2
“No tents. No food. I think some people will die this night.” It’s a chilling start to Amir Bar-Lev’s sobering, cautionary documentary about the 2021 race to be the first to climb the world’s second highest peak, which resulted in five deaths. The copious interviews and footage (every team seemingly had a camera crew) focus mainly on the Icelandic/Pakistani trio of John Snorri and Ali and Sajid Sadpara. They got to base camp first but were soon joined by “rock star” Sherpa climber Nims Purja and, fatefully, a large commercial expedition of mostly amateurs.
Friday 2 October, Apple TV
