Pick of the week
M3gan 2.0
Like Chucky in the Child’s Play films, you can’t keep an evil doll down for long. So here’s a sequel to the 2022 horror about an AI-led robot that will do anything, including murder, to protect its young human charge. This time, M3gan has been superseded by Amelia, an even deadlier model that’s gone rogue from its military handlers. Allison Williams and Violet McGraw return as inventor Gemma and her niece Cady, who reluctantly join forces – Mission: Impossible style – with the rebooted M3gan to defeat the new bot on the block. With a healthy seam of sarcasm (there’s a superb misuse of a Kate Bush song), plus the odd serious thought about the future of AI, it’s a fun ride.
Friday 6 February, 12.30pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Afire
The second in German director Christian Petzold’s series of films based on the four elements, this brooding 2023 tale uses the threat of a forest fire to concentrate the mind of its protagonist. Self-centred author Leon (Thomas Schubert) visits the holiday home of his photographer friend Felix (Langston Uibel) to work quietly on his book. However, Paula Beer’s Nadja is already staying there, and with Felix hooking up with local lifeguard Devid (Enno Trebs), the immature Leon reacts badly. But does he actually need these real-life dramas to create great fiction?
Saturday 31 January, 11pm, BBC Four
***
Chevalier
Celebrated composer and violinist, master fencer, revolutionary soldier – Joseph Bologne led a life that Stephen Williams’s period biopic has a job on to encapsulate. The mixed-race son of an enslaved Guadeloupe woman and a French plantation owner, Joseph (Kelvin Harrison Jr) rises through late 18th-century Parisian society, becoming a favourite of Queen Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton). But his celebrity threatens social and racial distinctions, and unrest is growing in the city … A fascinating slice of Black history about a man at the dead centre of the zeitgeist.
Monday 2 February, 10.55pm, Film4
***
The Night of the 12th
An onscreen note at the start of Dominik Moll’s immersive true-crime drama reveals that it’s based on an unsolved murder, so don’t expect any shock unmasking at the end. This is more along the lines of David Fincher’s Zodiac, as the hunt for the killer of Clara, a young woman from a small town in the French Alps, oscillates between revelation and frustration. Bastien Bouillon plays the newly appointed lead detective, Yohan, who struggles to make progress in the case as every one of Clara’s loathsome lovers – past and present – provokes suspicion. SW
Tuesday 3 February, 1.35am, Film4
***
Ella McCay
The return to directing of James L Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News) after 15 years is a cause for celebration, as is a lead role for the great Emma “Sex Education” Mackey. This comedy-drama about an idealistic 34-year-old (Mackey) thrust into the role of state governor may not be as good as it gets for either of their careers, but the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis (as Ella’s sharp-tongued aunt) and Woody Harrelson (as her estranged father) give the film some much-needed comic vitality.
Thursday 5 February, Disney+
***
Name Me Lawand
Edward Lovelace’s deeply touching documentary tries to give hearing viewers an insight into a deaf world, while probing the trauma faced by asylum seekers. Lawand is a young Iraqi Kurd who came to the UK and attends the Royal School for the Deaf in Derby. Muffled sounds, silence and closed captions add depth to the story he and his family tell about his struggle to adjust to a new life and learn to communicate – particularly as his parents won’t learn sign language. Their fight against deportation comes down to how successful Lawand is at the school, adding to the pressure this engaging, hopeful child feels.
Thursday 5 February, 2.50am, Channel 4
***
Silver Haze
Actor Vicky Knight and director Sacha Polak are becoming quite the team. After Dirty God, they reunited in 2023 for another traumatic tale about love, hate and unexpected families. Knight plays a nurse, Franky, who is physically and emotionally scarred after a fire 15 years earlier and harbours vengeful thoughts against those responsible. Then she meets a suicidal patient, Florence (Esme Creed-Miles), and falls fatefully in love with her. This is far from the “normal” relationship she desires, but Flo’s grandma (Angela Bruce) could help her to a solution.
Friday 6 February, 11pm, BBC Two
