Pick of the week
Victim/Suspect
A damning indictment of US police work, Nancy Schwartzman’s documentary follows journalist Rae de Leon’s investigation into women who reported sexual assaults – and were then prosecuted for lying about their attacks. Her four-year search turned up 200 such cases, and it’s shocking to hear and see – from police interview tapes – how vulnerable young people can find the tables turned on them. Detectives wedded to stereotypes are shown neglecting the basics of their job; they’re even legally allowed to lie (they call them “ruses”) to encourage victims to retract. The film focuses on the women’s lives damaged as a result but De Leon’s devotion to justice brings hope that times are changing.
Tuesday 23 May, Netflix
***
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me
A companion piece to the recent Pamela Anderson film, though this one is far darker. There’s the same troubled childhood, rise to fame via Playboy, dodgy relationships with men (in this case ageing billionaire J Howard Marshall) and precipitous fall from grace. Sadly, Smith didn’t live long enough to find the redemption Anderson has, dying at 39 of an accidental drug overdose. Ursula Macfarlane’s film is a fascinating cautionary tale, where success amplifies the worst parts of a personality (“Bad pays better,” says one interviewee) and luck can quickly run out.
Out now, Netflix
***
White Men Can’t Jump
The 1992 comedy-drama about two street basketball hustlers gets a fun update from director Calmatic (who also recently reworked House Party), with a few tweaks to the racial politics and a more laidback approach to the pair’s comic rivalry. Sinqua Walls and rapper Jack Harlow take on the Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson roles – and while they don’t have the same star quality, they banter around the cliches and impress in the outdoor court scenes, as they aim for a big-money tournament that will cure their financial ills.
Out now, Disney+
***
Loveless
Andrey Zvyagintsev followed the biting Leviathan with this sombre but moving tale. One snowswept autumn, a Moscow couple (Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin) are preparing to separate but, with new partners already lined up, neither wants custody of their 12-year-old son. When the boy goes missing, and a volunteer search team get involved, they are forced to confront their self-centred, emotionally stunted ways. Despite being an intimate film, it’s not a stretch to view the pair’s empty lives as a microcosm of Russian society. SW
Sunday 21 May, 1.15am, Film4
***
Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee’s punchy drama starts with kids playing in the water from a fire hydrant and ends with them angrily facing off against a fire hose. Between the two deluges is a sharply observed summer’s day in the life of a Brooklyn neighbourhood. The uneasy cohabitation between groups comes to the boil at a pizzeria owned by Sal (Danny Aiello) where Mookie (Lee) works while trying to keep the peace. Amid the sparks lurks a nuanced take on racial identity. SW
Monday 22 May, 11.15pm, BBC Two
***
Spring
From those reliable purveyors of low-budget sci-fi weirdness, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, comes a film that starts as a sweet holiday romance and ends up an altogether queasier love story. Lou Taylor Pucci plays Evan, who flees the US for Italy after his mother dies and he beats up a guy in a bar. In a picture-postcard coastal town he falls for Louise (Nadia Hilker), a young Italian studying evolutionary genetics – and his rootlessness contrasts with her interest in antiquity. But she has an unusual skin condition, which gains significance as their affair develops in unexpected ways. SW
Monday 22 May, 10.50pm, HorrorXtra
***
Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
The true story of a Japanese second world war soldier stationed in the Philippines, who hid out on an island and didn’t surrender until 1974, is a gift to fiction. Hiroo Onoda (played as a young man by Endô Yûya; older by Tsuda Kanji) is sent to Lubang to organise a guerrilla campaign. But after US forces invade he ends up camping rough with three others, refusing to believe his beloved country lost and determined to follow orders. There’s plenty of comedy in Arthur Harari’s film but, ultimately, it’s a tragic tale of futility: a man out of time, reduced to just surviving.
Thursday 25 May, 12.35am, Film4
