Critical Week: Socially distant

The weather has warmed up again in the UK this past week, which makes staying indoors more annoying - apart from that allowed one-hour walk each day. But there are plenty of films to watch, and I've also binged some TV (loved Ryan Murphy's Hollywood and enjoyed Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever). As for the movies, it was another uneven batch.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Half of It • Spaceship Earth
A Good Woman Is Hard to Find
PERHAPS AVOID:
Cry for the Bad Man
Can You Keep a Secret?

Bigger films included Arkansas, Clark Duke's directing debut. He stars with Liam Hemsworth (above) in a thin but entertaining drug thriller infused with Coen-like comedy. Leah Lewis and Daniel Diemer deserve to become stars for their work in The Half of It, one of the finest teen comedy-dramas in recent memory. It upends, and betters, all of the usual tropes of the genre. On the other hand, All Day and a Night gets stuck in its grim, tough portrayal of of a teen (the superb Ashton Sanders) caught in a cycle of drug-fuelled violence.

Some other decent films included the low-key drama Working Man, weaving a witty, involving story following the closing of a small-town factory; and Spaceship Earth is a fascinating doc about biospherians trying to help the planet, but caught up in rumours that they're in a doomsday cult. Guilty pleasures included the bonkers horror movie Reborn, which carefully recreates a 1970s vibe; and Enemy Lines is a standard WWII rescue adventure, but it's nicely shot on location with a solid cast. Less successful were the atmospheric but vacuous fairy tale horror Gretel & Hansel, the intimate but unsatisfying drama Clementine, and the hammy but over-serious home-invasion thriller Cry for the Bad Man.

I have quite a few things to watch over the next week, including Timothee Chalamet in A Rainy Day in New York, David Spade in The Wrong Missy, Kumail Nanjiani in The Photograph, Tamsin Grieg in Days of the Bagnold Summer, Imogen Poots in Castle in the Ground, festival hit Never Rarely Sometimes Always, coming-of-age drama Angelfish, horror anthology Evil Little Things, sci-fi thriller Red Rover, and Italian comedy-drama Fairytale.