Pick of the week
The Gorge
Lithuanian sniper Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) and retired US Marine sharpshooter Levi (Miles Teller) are separately selected for the same top-secret job: to guard a mist-covered gorge in remote mountains and stop whatever is in there from getting out. They are stationed on opposite sides – one Russian-run, the other American – so their remote meet-cute develops into a romance across the divide. In Scott Derrickson’s sleek horror thriller, there’s plenty of tracer bullet gunplay and squishy combat with the mysterious creatures that dwell below, but it’s the chemistry of Taylor-Joy and Teller that lifts the piece – a sexy pair who just happen to be highly proficient killers.
Out now, Apple TV+
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Compartment No 6
Train-set films are a slam dunk for drama. There’s the enclosed space that forces characters to interact, while the ever-shifting landscape of the journey – in Juho Kuosmanen’s tender movie it’s from Moscow to Murmansk in deep winter – inspires personal change. For Finnish archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla), it begins with sharing a compartment with ostensibly boorish young Russian Lyokha (Anora’s Yura Borisov), but this brief encounter leads her into a realisation of the lives of others and an opportunity to re-evaluate her own. A first-class tale.
Saturday 15 February, 10.45pm, BBC Four
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Nurse Betty
It would be a shame if Renée Zellweger’s career ends up being defined solely by Bridget Jones, because in the likes of Neil LaBute’s delicious dark comedy drama she shows a range rarely seen in those Britcoms. Her Betty is a Kansas waitress obsessed with a hospital soap. After a shocking incident, she enters an altered state where she thinks the TV drama is real and sets off to LA to “win back” the lead character (a slimy Greg Kinnear). There are nods to The Wizard of Oz as Betty works through her fantasy cum mental breakdown.
Saturday 15 February, 1.40am, Comedy Central
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Rob Peace
Written, directed by and co-starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, this “based on a true story” drama undoubtedly qualifies as a labour of love for the actor. It traces the youth and young adulthood of academically gifted New Jersey kid Rob (a charismatic turn from Tulsa King’s Jay Will), whose father (Ejiofor) has been wrongly jailed for murder. It’s a film about potential realised and wasted, and is tragic but inspirational, as Rob adopts various personas – Yale student, property developer, teacher, even proto-Walter White drug chemist – all while pursuing his dad’s legal case.
Wednesday 19 February, Paramount+
***
Shayda
Iran-born film-maker Noora Niasari has put her childhood experience of living in a women’s shelter in Australia into this assured debut feature. A heart-tugging Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays Iranian student Shayda, who escaped her abusive husband while they were studying in Melbourne and now stays in a refuge with her daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) and other troubled souls. But it’s not all trauma, as Shayda and Mona defy rootlessness by maintaining the traditions of their homeland.
Wednesday 19 February, 1.35am, Film4
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Vesper
Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper’s coming-of-age sci-fi movie combines imaginative design with a fable-like feel. It’s a dystopian story set in a new dark age with a genetically mutated ecosystem and citadels that control the few viable crops. Teenager Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) just about survives in a rural shack with her bedbound father, while keeping out of the way of the local bigwig, her uncle Jonas (an implacably brutal Eddie Marsan). But she has scientific skills that offer hope for the future, especially after an encounter with a mysterious citadel dweller (Rosy McEwen).
Thursday 20 February, 9pm, Film4
***
The Ladykillers
The final classic from the golden age of Ealing Studios, Alexander Mackendrick’s piquant comedy pits a gang of robbers against a sweet old widow who lives near London’s King’s Cross station. Alec Guinness is the most famous name, playing their leader Prof Marcus, but dramatically it’s a group effort, with Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers also part of his motley crew. Katie Johnson is the formidable Mrs Wilberforce, who rents out rooms to Marcus’s “string quintet” while they plan their next operation, and proves their unwitting nemesis. SW
Thursday 20 February, 9pm, Sky Arts
