Pick of the week
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris
After her fashion-house insider in Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville tries her hand at a working-class outsider in Anthony Fabian’s beguiling drama, whose lightness of tone can’t disguise its egalitarian politics. She plays Ada Harris, a London cleaner whose dream of buying a Christian Dior dress leads her to Paris in 1957 and a culture clash with Isabelle Huppert’s clothing boss Claudine. Ada is soon drawn into Dior’s financial woes, while charming its staff with her openness and refusal to kowtow. Manville is a perfect fit for the role, friendly but forthright, and the social worlds Ada traverses – from dog track to suave nightclub – are lovingly recreated.
Saturday 13 May, 6pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Air
Like the recent Tetris, this Ben Affleck-directed film takes the true story of a businessman’s attempt to get a contract signed and burnishes it into slick comedy-drama. This one is about Nike’s fight to make up-and-coming basketball genius Michael Jordan put his name to their trainers in 1984. Matt Damon is convincingly careworn as marketing man Sonny Vaccaro who stakes his – and Nike’s – future on winning the player’s signature. Viola Davis steals her scenes as Jordan’s forbidding mother, while the on-the-nose pop soundtrack buoys up the money moves.
Out now, Prime Video
***
The Mauritanian
Based on a harrowing memoir by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Kevin Macdonald’s film benefits from a terrific Tahar Rahim performance as an innocent man caught up in the US government’s mission of blind revenge after 9/11. Wrongly suspected of being involved in the attack, Mohamdeou is incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay. His inhumane treatment there makes for disturbing drama, but equal focus is given to his long-running legal case. Jodie Foster brings star wattage as his lawyer, and Benedict Cumberbatch is oddly sympathetic as a Marine Corps prosecutor.
Sunday 14 May, 10pm, BBC Two
***
Marathon Man
“Is it safe?” Probably best to skip this movie if you’ve got a dentist’s appointment, as Laurence Olivier’s most-wanted Nazi war criminal Szell wields his surgical drill in search of information. The “patient” is Dustin Hoffman’s New York history student Babe, drawn into a conspiracy involving his secret agent brother Doc (Roy Scheider). John Schlesinger’s 1976 film came out when paranoia thrillers were all the rage, and it digs fruitfully into worries about the ways we are governed – and how history can come back to bite us.
Monday 15 May, 10pm, Sky Cinema Greats
***
Moonlight
A triple Oscar winner (sorry, La La Land), Barry Jenkins’s drama takes a tale of repressed sexuality in a sinkhole of drugs and violence and crafts something tender and beautiful. The coming of age of Miami boy Chiron is portrayed in three episodes – as a kid with a crack-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) and a father figure in local drug lord Juan (Mahershala Ali), a bullied teenager, and a muscle-bound criminal adult. His heartbreaking failure to be true to himself is all-pervasive.
Tuesday 16 May, 11.15pm, BBC Two
***
Barking Dogs Never Bite
Bong Joon-ho’s off-kilter debut feature takes a man annoyed by a yapping dog and pushes his crisis to satirical extremes. Lee Sung-jae plays whiny South Korean academic Yun-ju, who locks an annoying pooch in the basement of his block of flats, only to realise he’s disposed of the wrong pet. This sets in train a series of unintended consequences for him and feckless book-keeper Hyun-nam (Bae Doona), who becomes obsessed by the canine murder mysteries that ensue. Black comedy spars with social commentary in a style familiar to fans of the director’s later hit, Parasite.
Thursday 18 May, 1.30am, Film4
***
Baby Done
In New Zealand, there’s a strain of excellent misfit comedy epitomised by Taika Waititi – and often enabled by him, too. Curtis Vowell’s 2020 film is a fine example of the style. Rose Matafeo stars as Zoe, a tree surgeon in a work/love relationship with Tim (Harry Potter alumnus Matthew Lewis). Then she finds out she’s going to have a baby and a severe case of “pregnancy negation” kicks in – confusion, denial, tree-climbing. It’s a smart tale exploring that point in most adults’ lives where youthful and irresponsible tips into grownup and (slightly) less self-centred.
Friday 19 May, 9pm, BBC Three
