Pick of the week
The Little Mermaid
The danger in Disney remaking its animated back catalogue as live action has always been in staining the memory of a much-loved children’s film (The Jungle Book will never be the same again for me). Rob Marshall’s splashy new version of the 1989 fantasy musical mostly keeps it simple, with tweaks to the plot (Ariel gets more agency) and soundtrack (three new songs). The one major change is the colourblind casting of Black actor Halle Bailey as the mermaid princess who falls for a human prince. It’s a refreshing move, and the engaging Bailey knocks it out of the park. The photo-realistic talking crabs and birds are less convincing, but movie musical veteran Marshall is a steady hand at the tiller. Simon Wardell
Wednesday 6 September, Disney+
***
Sharp Stick
Writer-director Lena Dunham digs down into the messy stuff of life again with this frank but sweet-natured coming-of-wisdom tale. Kristine Froseth plays winsome 26-year-old virgin Sarah Jo, a trainee carer for a child with special needs – the son of Josh (Jon Bernthal) and a heavily pregnant Heather (Dunham). She initiates an affair with Josh but is soon out of her depth emotionally, mistaking her failure for a lack of sexual expertise. Her subsequent education in erotica is eye-opening and often very funny.
Sunday 3 September, 10.45pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
The Importance of Being Earnest
This 1952 film is notable for the mic-drop moment of Edith Evans’s Lady Bracknell exclaiming: “A handbag?” However, courtesy of the original play’s author Oscar Wilde, Anthony Asquith’s elegant adaptation is full of other deliciously quotable lines. Michael Redgrave and Michael Dension play the upper-class friends who both assume the identity of “Ernest” in pursuit of the women they love (the ever delightful Joan Greenwood and Dorothy Tutin, respectively), causing a great deal of polite confusion when they all congregate at a country manor.
Sunday 3 September, 12.30pm, BBC Two
***
Children of Men
Part biblical allegory, part mythical quest, part dystopian action movie, Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 thriller just gets better with age. In a near-future (2027, to be exact) when all humans are infertile and the UK is a crumbling, anti-immigrant dictatorship, bureaucrat Theo (an impressively careworn Clive Owen) finds himself helping renegade activists protect Clare-Hope Ashitey’s refugee Kee – who is, miraculously, pregnant. In brilliant extended takes, Theo guides Kee towards safety through a rubbish-strewn, violent landscape of fear and bigotry.
Sunday 3 September, 11.40pm, BBC One
***
Death Race 2000
From the stable of B-movie king Roger Corman came this trashy but immensely fun exploitation flick. A totalitarian US government uses a transcontinental road race as its opiate for the masses, with the competitors scoring extra points for mowing down the public (100 for an over-70). Negotiating the violence and sex of this dystopian Wacky Races are the likes of David Carradine’s ace driver Frankenstein and Sylvester Stallone’s hair-trigger Machine Gun Joe Vitterbo.
Monday 4 September, 10.05pm, Talking Pictures TV
***
Tyrannosaur
Actor Paddy Considine has tried out the director’s chair a couple of times, and Film4 have scheduled both in a double bill. Boxing drama Journeyman is at 1.25am, preceded by his 2001 debut, a brutal but deeply affecting tale. The first scene where Peter Mullan’s Joseph kicks his own dog to death sets the tone: there is little light in this jobless, haunted man’s life until he meets charity shop worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). His (self-)loathing begins to ebb but her Christian kindness masks terrors in her own life. It’s a tough watch, but Mullan and Colman make their damaged souls wholly believable.
Tuesday 5 September, 11.25pm, Film4
***
Relic
A wonderfully creepy first feature from Australian director and co-writer Natalie Erika James, which uses the psychological horror of dementia as a prop for an expertly paced haunted house chiller. When grandmother Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing, Emily Mortimer’s daughter, Kay, and her grownup child Sam (Bella Heathcote) race to the old family home. Edna returns but there’s something not right with her or her mould-infested, creaking house in the woods – a darkness weighed down by their collective past is lurking behind the walls.
Friday 8 September, 11.25pm, BBC One
