Streaming this week are some high-profile documentaries and docuseries, plus a few romantic movies to set the stage for Valentine’s Day.
First up, the Oscar-nominated documentary “All That Breathes,” from director Shaunak Sen, follows two brothers in New Dehli, India, who run a bird hospital caring for injured and ill hawks and other birds of prey, which they call kites. This poignant observational documentary takes the bird hospital as a point of specificity to talk about the issues of pollution and environmental disaster — the air pollution and smog cause these powerful birds to drop from the sky, signifying the potential hazards for all living creatures in this environment. Saving the birds is just one small action the brothers can take in the face of this existential and environmental crisis, and Shen’s beautifully restrained yet incredibly moving film contains so much within this story. Stream it starting today on HBO Max.
Premiering on Hulu Thursday, the docuseries “Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence” looks at the strange case of Larry Ray, the father of a student at Sarah Lawrence College who moved into his daughter’s house and began controlling the lives of her friends and roommates who fell under his influence. The story first broke in a 2019 article in New York Magazine, and in 2022 Ray was convicted of sex trafficking, extortion, conspiracy and other charges related to his decade of control over these young people. One of Ray’s survivors reached out to Oscar-nominated director Zachary Heinzerling (“Cutie and the Boxer”) to tell their side of the story from their point of view, and the result is the three-part docuseries. All three episodes premiere on Hulu on Thursday.
The latest collaboration between married actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco arrives on Prime on Friday. “Somebody That I Used to Know” is a poignant indie romantic drama that the couple co-wrote and Franco directed. Brie stars as a workaholic TV producer in crisis who ends up back in her hometown, and connecting with an ex (Jay Ellis), who happens to be marrying Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons) imminently. Danny Pudi, Haley Joel Osment, Olga Merediz and Amy Sedaris co-star. Stream it on Prime starting Friday, and if you’re interested in checking out Franco’s first directorial effort, the 2020 AirBnB horror flick “The Rental,” starring Brie and Dan Stevens, it is streaming on Netflix and AMC+.
Nostalgic for the rom-coms of the aughts? Check out “Your Place or Mine,” streaming on Netflix Friday. The feature directorial debut of Aline Brosh McKenna, who wrote the screenplays for “The Devil Wears Prada,” “27 Dresses” and “Morning Glory,” this film stars Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as longtime friends who find themselves re-evaluating their friendship when they trade homes, and lives, for a week. Stream “Your Place or Mine” on Netflix starting Friday, and if it doesn’t scratch the itch, “The Devil Wears Prada” is on Amazon Freevee, “Morning Glory” is on Paramount+ and “27 Dresses” is available to rent on all platforms. Plus, the brilliant series that Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom created, “My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is streaming on Netflix.
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(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the "Miami Nice" podcast.)
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