Pick of the week
I Swear
One thing that has been lost in the furore surrounding John Davidson’s outbursts at the Baftas is the film itself. As a plea for tolerance and understanding, Kirk Jones’s award-winning biopic of Davidson – who has Tourette syndrome – is moving and persuasive. And in Robert Aramayo it has a lead who throws himself wholeheartedly into a life that oscillates between desperation and hope, tragedy and comedy. Scott Ellis Watson is his equal playing the young John, who starts to develop tics as a teenager and finds his life falling apart. Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan, as the two mentors who help him see his potential, add lustre to a spirited and essential watch.
Tuesday 10 March, Netflix
***
Worldbreaker
In a post-climate breakdown future, humanity is assailed by Breakers, insectoid creatures that have appeared from beneath the Earth’s surface and infected or killed most of the population, with men particularly susceptible. Luke Evans and Billie Boullet play a father and 15-year-old daughter who hide out on an island while Mum (Milla Jovovich) fights on with her all-female army. Making a virtue of a limited budget, director Brad Anderson focuses on the coming-of-age angle, with Evans’s Welsh lilt giving a bardic feel to the survival story.
Saturday 7 March, Prime Video
***
Brief History of a Family
Lin Jianjie’s delicious Chinese psychological drama has hints of Parasite but this tale of a cuckoo in the nest of a middle-class family is even more unsettling and ambiguous. Xilun Sun plays Yan Shuo, a reserved boy befriended by his sporty but less academically gifted classmate Tu Wei (Muran Lin). Wei’s mother (Keyu Guo) and father (Feng Zu) see in Shuo the son they wanted – attentive, cultured, smart – but is his escalating presence in their lives just an attempt to escape from an apparently abusive father or something more sinister?
Saturday 7 March, 10.40pm, BBC Four
***
The Manchurian Candidate
With the brainwashing of US soldiers in 50s Korea pictured early on, John Frankenheimer’s terrific thriller makes its central mystery not what happened to Laurence Harvey’s decorated war hero Shaw but why. Frank Sinatra plays his commanding officer Marco, whose recurring nightmares hold the key to a pan-communist plot against America. Steeped in a cold war paranoia that seems to bring out the main characters in cold sweats, it’s also a sly oedipal tale, with Shaw’s mother (Angela Lansbury) intent on involving her son in his senator stepfather’s rise to power.
Sunday 8 March, 9pm, Sky Arts
***
Zootropolis 2
Whether it’s called Zootopia 2 or Zoomania 2 (hello Germany), the second-highest-grossing animated film of all time is a chip off the old block. Back come police detective duo Judy Hopps, a rabbit (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), and Nick Wilde, a red fox (Jason Bateman), as they seek a snake (Ke Huy Quan) who may be connected to a smuggling operation. But snakes haven’t been seen in the city for years … A colourful comedy action adventure that will appeal mostly to the younger generation.
Wednesday 11 March, Disney+
***
Materialists
Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives has a superficially similar setup of a woman caught between two men – one of whom is from her past. But here the focus for Dakota Johnson’s high-end Manhattan matchmaker Lucy is whether to opt for love with her ex – broke actor/waiter John (Chris Evans) – or marriage to the loaded, 10-out-of 10 “unicorn” financier Harry (Pedro Pascal). There are lots of quotable lines about the business of dating and getting hitched, and the three stars are infinitely photogenic, while Lucy’s dilemma is ripe for heated post-viewing debate.
Friday 13 March, 8.35am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Girl
This wonderfully assured debut feature from Adura Onashile is a sensitive portrait of immigrant life, and the dead weight of history with which many struggle. Nightshift cleaner Grace (an exceptional Déborah Lukumuena) lives in a Glasgow block of flats with her 11-year-old daughter Ama (Le’Shantey Bonsu), but past trauma has made her mistrustful of the outside world, even agoraphobic, and overprotective of her child. However, Ama has a youthful desire for new experience, and finds a friend in cheeky neighbour Fiona (Liana Turner).
Friday 13 March, 11pm, BBC Two
