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14
Pick of the week
H Is for Hawk
Getting up close and personal with animals can be a life-affirming way of feeling at one with nature. It can also be a way of avoiding the messier everyday of being human. For Helen Macdonald (a febrile Claire Foy), in Philippa Lowthorpe’s adaptation of Macdonald’s bestselling memoir, it is the tug between the two that brings her world crashing down. After her beloved father (Brendan Gleeson) dies, Helen decides to train a goshawk (“a perfectly evolved psychopath,” her mentor warns) in memory of their shared love of the great outdoors. But confronting avian life red in tooth and claw isn’t the same as dealing with the complex emotions of grief. An arresting, affecting drama.
Sunday 23 August, Netflix
We Dive at Dawn
Despite dutifully fulfilling its propaganda brief, this 1943 film from Anthony Asquith works superbly in its own right as a tense wartime thriller. John Mills, that era’s go-to everyman, stars as the captain of the fictional submarine Sea Tiger. Sent on a mission to attack a new German battleship, he and his crew find themselves out on their own in the Baltic, facing mines, undersea nets and destroyers. Naturally, a can-do attitude prevails, but the tangled personal lives of the crew provide a comic distraction to the life-and-death stuff of winning the war.
Saturday 22 August, 1.25pm, BBC Two
Doctor Strange
This is the movie that, for better or worse, introduced the multiverse to Marvel’s superhero franchise. It also chucked magic into the otherwise muscle-based mix – as practised by Benedict Cumberbatch’s arrogant brain surgeon turned wielder of the mystic arts. This gives the film an enjoyably psychedelic feel, as Strange battles rogue sorcerer Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), and is oddly reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Tenet (it was released between the two) in its architecture-twisting, time-reversing spectacle.
Saturday 22 August, 8pm, Channel 4
Howards End
EM Forster’s 1910 novel about class, money, love and a house in the country was styled into a prestige period drama by Merchant Ivory, aided by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Oscar-winning script. Three levels of society come into conflict in a story of chance encounters, misguided charity and patriarchal hypocrisy. Anthony Hopkins’s rigid, rich businessman Henry Wilcox is drawn to the bohemian, privileged Schlegel sisters Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (Helena Bonham Carter), while they get involved in the life of poor clerk Leonard Bast (Samuel West).
Monday 24 August, 1.15pm, Film4
Nightcrawler
It may have dated somewhat in this age of people filming everything on their phones, but Dan Gilroy’s dark 2014 drama is still wholly relevant in its clear-eyed critique of the public’s obsession with true crime. Jake Gyllenhaal – hollow of eye and creepy of smile – plays Louis, a sociopathic petty thief who finds a new job driving around LA shooting graphic footage of police incidents for the local TV news. If it bleeds it leads, with his ratings-chasing boss, Nina (Rene Russo), encouraging Louis’s worst tendencies.
Monday 24 August, 9pm, Sky Atlantic
Arthur the King
Michael (Mark Wahlberg) used to be an adventure racer, competing in team endurance events that involve epic stretches of running, trekking, cycling and kayaking – but never won a contest. Irked by his failure, he comes out of retirement for the world championship in the Dominican Republic. As his ragtag group struggle through mud, forest and mountain, Michael realises they are being followed – and at times assisted – by a stray dog. Simon Cellan Jones’s fact-based adventure is Lassie-like in its dog-friendly emotional manipulation but has plenty of rugged action for extreme sports fans.
Tuesday 25 August, 10.40pm, BBC One
The Day Shall Come
Chris Morris’s scathing 2019 satire about the US government’s “war on terror” and the innocents caught up in it may be the most neglected of his brilliant career but in its plausibility (“Based on a hundred true stories,” a title card notes) and bleak comedy it deserves more love. Moses Al Shabaz (an endearing Marchánt Davis) is a delusional Miami preacher who leads a radical black power movement (members: three) that is infiltrated by an FBI branch desperate for a win, despite posing no actual threat. Not as surreal as Four Lions but it still possesses a sharp bite.
Wednesday 26 August, 1.25am, Film4
