Pick of the week
The Straight Story
In his lifetime, David Lynch directed very few films that could safely be shown on TV at Sunday teatime. In this regard, The Straight Story serves as a career outlier. However, despite lacking all his trademark dread and disquiet, it deserves to go down as one of his very best. Based on the true story of Alvin Straight, a man who, in 1994, took his 5mph lawnmower on a 240-mile road trip to visit his sick brother, it shimmers with awestruck wonder. Lead actor Richard Farnsworth was in the latter stages of terminal cancer during filming, and his stubborn determination to see the journey through is reflected throughout the whole movie. A perfect film with a perfect ending.
Sunday 2 February, 4.10pm, Film4
***
You’re Cordially Invited
In the same way that 2022’s Ticket to Paradise felt like a comforting throwback thanks to Julia Roberts and George Clooney’s easy romcom patter, this feels like a treat for nostalgists. It stars Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon as two people who double-book a wedding venue with inevitable slapstick repercussions. It’s the sort of unapologetically broad comedy that doesn’t get made any more, complete with gratuitous alligator wrestling. Will you remember it a year from now? No. Will you have the time of your life watching it now? Certainly.
Out now, Prime Video
***
I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun’s 2021 film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was memorably unsettling, but this follow-up runs laps around it. A horror about two young people whose nostalgic connection to an old TV show warps their sense of reality, the film manages to visually mimic the old VHS horrors of the 1980s while maintaining a strong modern message about gender identity. Martin Scorsese is a fan, calling it “emotionally and psychologically powerful.” More than anything, though, it will creep you out to a stupendous degree.
Saturday 1 February, 9.40am, 10.35pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Open Fire
For those wondering how Paul Greengrass was able to transition from ITV journalist to Hollywood power player, the answer is with films like Open Fire. This is his first work of filmed fiction; a 1994 made-for-TV movie about the real-life manhunt for escaped criminal David Martin, and the police blunder that led to a national scandal. As a finished piece of work it’s undoubtedly a little rough around the edges, and very much of its time. But as an artefact of Greengrass’s progress, it’s endlessly fascinating.
Saturday 1 February, 11.10pm, Talking Pictures TV
***
Kindling
When he was 21, Connor O’Hara lost two of his friends; an ordeal that he used as raw material for his debut feature Kindling. The result is an undeniably lovely story about a group of young men who gather to build a fire during the final summer of their friend’s life. It’s sweet and poignant, but really shines in its portrayal of male friendship. When Kindling gets it right – when it aims its focus squarely on a group of lads who need each other to get through something unimaginable – it’s nothing less than beautiful.
Sunday 2 February, 10.30pm, BBC Three
***
Storyville: Black Box Diaries
In 2015, journalist Shiori Ito awoke to find herself being raped by an older peer. But after the attack, she realised exactly how powerless she was. Her rapist was famous and well-connected. Japan’s rape laws were a century old, and no longer fit for purpose. The media refused to touch her story, so Ito started to document her struggle to be heard. Black Box Diaries is that document; a brave and gruelling account of one woman’s effort to change an entire culture. The fact she chose to do it at all is admirable; the fact that it worked is incredible. Don’t be surprised if this wins an Oscar next month.
Tuesday 4 February, 10pm, BBC Four
***
The Bikeriders
Even by Hollywood standards, you’d be hard-pressed to find a film as poorly treated as The Bikeriders. First bumped from schedules due to strikes, the film was then shopped around to other studios before it limped into cinemas last summer. And yet The Bikeriders is great. A 1950s motorcycle outlaw drama by Jeff Nichols (of Mud and Midnight Special renown), it features Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer, along with newly minted star Austin Butler, all doing brilliant work. Treat this as an opportunity to right a historic wrong.
Friday 5 February, 11.25am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
