Screen: May TV Roundup

There's been some very high-profile television over the past few months, including shows that have made global headlines, like Adolescence and the third season of The White Lotus. There have also been a few new series that are happy to simply keep us smiling, like The Four Seasons and The Studio. We need more of these at the moment! This roundup starts with four shows that came back for another season...

The White Lotus: series 3
Writer-director Mike White continues to take on major themes in unusually subtle ways, this time at a resort Thailand that's so beautiful we will all start saving up now. And the guests and staff are a terrific collection of people who are dealing with a range of issues that relate to morality and spirituality. It's so skilfully written and played that each scene worms its way into our subconscious. Standouts in the exceptional ensemble include Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Aimee Lou Wood, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola, plus a blazing Sam Rockwell. There are some loose threads that feel a bit messy, but this is top-tier TV. (Max)

Hacks: series 4
With a much darker tone, this season kicks off as war rages between the imperious Deborah (Jean Smart) and the feisty Ava (Hanna Einbinder). And things get very nasty indeed in these sharply well-written and performed episodes, with various subplots helpfully providing comic relief, most notably the ongoing antics of agents Jimmy and Kayla (Paul W Downs and Megan Salter). The depiction of the world of late night television is astute, including a properly pointed look at network TV politics. But as always, it's the rollercoaster relationship between Deborah and Ava that keeps us hooked, and it's a fantastic ride this time around. (Max)

The Conners:
series 7
There are only six episodes in this show's final season, capping a span of 37 years in the life of this working class family. The writers set out to both maintain the timely, salt-of-the-earth sensibilities while providing strong arcs for each of the central characters, and they manage to do this with clever plotting and their usual hilariously barbed dialog. The focus is on the veteran cast members, who continued to deepen their roles from episode to episode. So we'll miss John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert and Lecy Goranson, and it's a little frustrating that Michael Fishman (as DJ) wasn't back for the emotional goodbye. (ABC)

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light
Based on Hilary Mantel's historical novel, Wolf Hall gripped the nation in 2015, and it's taken a decade to get Part 2. The story picks up immediately, following Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) as he tries to navigate backchannel politics in the court of Henry VIII (Damien Lewis) and Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips). Beautifully written by Peter Straughan, and skilfully played by an excellent ensemble, this is a gorgeously made series that lives in its quieter moments. While the pacing is slow and delicate, the dialog is packed with subterfuge, as relationships are twisted by gossip and ambition. History is rarely recounted with so much introspection. (BBC)

S O M E T H I N G   N E W

Adolescence
This feels like landmark television, with four utterly unmissable episodes. It's written, directed and performed with staggering skill to tell a story that feels almost terrifyingly urgent. On the surface it's about a detective (Ashley Walters) investigating the murder of a teen girl by a 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper), whose father (Stephen Graham) can't comprehend the situation. But the show is actually a deep dive into the impact of toxic masculinity on society, touching on a range of jaw-dropping aspects. Philip Barantini directs each episode in a single long take that ramps up the intensity and provides powerful gut punches. (Netflix)

The Studio
While this comedy is somewhat goofy, it's also so much fun that we never want it to end. Seth Rogen leads the cast (and creative team) to take us behind the chaotic scenes, playing a Hollywood studio boss who's in over his head. Each episode works as a meta-joke exploring various aspects of moviemaking with humour that's both jaggedly smart and profoundly silly. And amid the broad jokes are some knowing observations about Hollywood. The quality slips in the final few episodes, which begin to feel somewhat repetitive, but the terrific cast includes the great Catherine O'Hara, and more A-list cameos per episode than seems humanly possible. (Apple)

The Four Seasons
Loosely based on the 1981 film, this eight-part series created by Tina Fey centres on three couples who take four holidays together over the course of a year. As their relationships shift, there's plenty of sharp comedy and strong emotion thanks to first-rate actors Fey, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney and Marco Calvani. Most enjoyable is the way the show is unafraid to indulge in some very silly antics alongside the much more serious storylines. So even if it all feels a bit too smart to be believable, the terrific actors find strongly grounded moments along the way. All of which makes it hugely entertaining. (Netflix)

Mid-Century Modern
Almost painfully broad, this is an old-school sitcom with a queer twist, essentially remaking The Golden Girls with three gay men in Palm Springs. Nathan Lane is the sardonic leader of the pack, Matt Bomer is the brainless himbo and Nathan Lee Graham is the wry socialite, with the great Linda Lavin as the resident house mother. This could work a treat, but the writing is almost painfully simplistic, falling back on obvious jokes and a string of starry cameos. Thankfully, the actors are excellent at providing the textures needed to make the characters likeable. But without much of interest going on, it's not easy to care if they return for more. (Disney)

Étoile
This has promise, an ensemble comedy centred around an exchange between premiere ballet companies in New York and Paris, but it's assembled in a bewilderingly uneven way. Everything is infused with slapstick, creating deliberately wacky characters who are both unsympathetic and frankly implausible. This almost works for quirky artistes like Tobias Glick's obsessively awkward choreographer, but it rings badly false with the administrators who take up the vast majority of the screen time. It seems like a crime to saddle actors like Charlotte Gainsbourg and Luke Kirby with such one-note roles. Still, it's just about watchable. (Amazon)

Mr Loverman
This is a beautifully written and directed series, based on the Bernardine Evaristo novel about a lively Afro-Caribbean family man in London (a stunningly complex role for Lennie James) who is secretly in love with his best friend Morris (Ariyon Bakare), but is still unable to come out of the closet. The show flickers back to previous times and places in their decades together, punctuated by both everyday encounters and momentous events. Most intriguing is how this sensitive, observant show traces how gay rights evolved around these two men, and their very different reactions to that. And the final episodes are powerfully moving. (BBC)

Carême
Loosely based on real historical figures, this French series centres around the very first celebrity chef Antonin Careme (Benjamin Voisin) in the early 19th century, and throws him into the middle of soapy romance and lots of political intrigue under Napoleon's turbulent rule. The food on display is fabulous, of course. And there's some fun to be had in Careme's sexual shenanigans, even if the plot badly bogs down in the more thriller-style elements that leave it little more than a quest for revenge. At least it plays out with some nice twists, and strong performances from the seductive Voisin, Lyna Khoudri, Jeremie Renier and others. (Apple)

GUILTY PLEASURES: Britain's Got Talent, Fool Us, The Traitors (Australia), Drag Race (17/Down Under), Million Dollar Secret.

NOW WATCHING: Overcompensating, Your Friends & Neighbors, Andor 2, The Last of Us 2, The Handmaid's Tale 6

COMING SOON: MurderBot, Adults, Stick, Long Way Home, And Just Like That 2, Fubar 2, Squid Game 3.

Previous roundup: MARCH 2025 > 

Critical Week: Pretty in pink

Screenings are back in full swing now, alongside continuing awards-season events, so there's plenty to watch out there these days. As a voter, it was nice to have a link to watch the Golden Globes live on Sunday, even if it finished at 4am London time. I enjoyed seeing the results of the all-new voting base, journalists scattered across some 75 countries who don't follow the usual Hollywood script. And the feed I was watching kept running during the ad breaks, so it was cool to watch the astonishing array of stars schmoozing and playing around before being called back to their seats. Now I have three weeks to finalise plans for the London critics awards, where we hope to have plenty of big names in the room to celebrate.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Soul • Poor Things
ALL REVIEWS >

As for the movies, the big screening this week was for the musical remake of Mean Girls, which is essentially the same movie with added music video-style songs and references to social media. Some of this works nicely, but it feels a little uneven. Race for Glory: Audi vs Lancia is a rather dry tale of rivalry between German and Italian car companies, livened up by a solid cast and a bit of racing action. The 90s-set New York drama You Can't Stay Here makes up for its low budget with some big underlying ideas and cool cinematic references. The British arthouse drama Silver Haze is relentlessly miserable, but shows some visual style. And the documentary Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer is fascinating for both fans and potential fans, but surprisingly straightforward.

This coming week I'll be watching Viggo Mortensen in Eureka, British thriller Jackdaw, award-winning British drama Gassed Up, Swedish refugee drama Opponent, Italian romance Fireworks and offbeat comedy The Civil Dead.

Critical Week: Learn that dance

It's awards season, so I had two more virtual screenings this week accompanied by cast and crew zoom-style Q&As. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a faithful adaptation of the acclaimed August Wilson play, and it's somewhat overplayed and stagebound. But the actors are superb, including the late Chadwick Boseman (all other actors should abandon Oscar hopes this year) and Viola Davis. And Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes star in The Dig, an unusually earthy period film about a history-changing archaeological discovery. Without the accompanying Q&As, I also caught up with Soul, in which Pixar outdoes even themselves with flat-out awesome animation and a staggeringly deep story, and Steven Soderbergh's Let Them All Talk, in which a starry cast (Streep! Bergen! Wiest!) explores deep themes in an offhanded shipboard comedy.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Stand In • Alex Wheatle
Funny Boy • The Prom
Song Without a Name
ALL REVIEWS >

The final two episodes of Steve McQueen's unmissable Small Axe series screened: Alex Wheatle is a superb biopic about the awakening of an acclaimed novelist, while Education is an exhilarating drama that takes on racism in Britain's school system. Riz Ahmed is simply stunning as a drummer dealing with deafness in Sound of Metal. Tessa Thompson transcends the muted period vibe in the romance Sylvie's Love. And Sienna Miller shines in the moody odyssey Wander Darkly. 

I also caught up with two excellent foreign films: Funny Boy is a moving, gorgeously made drama from Sri Lanka by ace filmmaker Deepa Mehta, while Cocoon is a German coming-of-age drama that catches an intimate perspective. And there was also one film screened in a cinema, and the freaky British horror Saint Maud is definitely worth seeing on a huge screen with a rumbling sound system.

This coming week, I have two more screenings in actual cinemas: delayed blockbuster Wonder Woman 1984 and the true conspiracy drama The Mauritanian starring Tahar Rahim, Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch. There's also Diane Lane in Let Him Go, Alicia Silverstone in Sister of the Groom, Alicia Witt in Modern Persuasion, the dance-based romance Aviva and the shorts collection The Boy Is Mine.

Short Cuts: Wine, worlds and magic

Here are shorter reviews of three films I caught online over the past few days...

Wine Country
dir Amy Poehler; scr Liz Cackowski, Emily Spivey
with Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Tina Fey, Maya Erskine, Cherry Jones, Jason Schwartzman
19/US Netflix 1h43 ***

Amy Poehler gathers her buddies together for this comedy about a group of six women who travel to Napa Valley to celebrate a 50th birthday. Friends for more than two decades, they rent a big house with bad wifi from a manly landlady (Fey) and follow an elaborate schedule planned by Abby (Poehler). The house comes with a sensitive chef/guide (Schwartzman), who adds some welcome texture to the nuttiness, as does the fabulous Cherry Jones as a visiting fortune-teller. She introduces the main plot point by encouraging them to deal with the secrets between them. And of course each of them has a big secret.

The dialog feels realistic and snappy, but lacks edge or insight, opting for gently observational smiles rather than outright laughter. Plus a lot of mugging along with guilty-pleasure pop songs. Improvisational moments add some spark, mainly thanks to shameless scene-stealers Rudolph and Fey, although each of these gifted hams gleefully takes the spotlight. Some of the dialog riffs are hilarious, such as when they talk about their love of Prince or when they cross a group of Millennials in an art gallery. Other things fall flat, like listing the prescription drugs they're on, worried they might interact with molly (as if litres of wine weren't enough). Speaking of wine, much of the humour centres on wildly drunken antics that begin to feel a little lazy, although the inebriated confessions lead into more intriguing angles exploring how avoiding the truth has held these women together all these years. And maybe being honest will make them even closer. So when they begin to admit that their lives aren't as perfect as they pretend they are, the film finds some proper resonance. It's all a bit mushy, but amiable enough to pass the time.

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The Wandering Earth 
dir Frant Gwo; scr Geer Gong, Dongxu Yan, Frant Gwo, Junce Ye, Zhixue Yang, Ti Wu, Ruchang Ye, JJ Shen
with Wu Jing, Chuxiao Qu, Jinmai Jaho , Guangjie Li, Man-Tat Ng, Michael Kai Sui, Jingjing Qu, Yichi Zhang, Yang Haoyu, Arkadiy Sharogradskiy
19/China 2h05 **.

China's biggest-yet blockbuster is a big, busy movie that simply refuses to settle down into something engaging. But its ticking-timebomb plot holds the interest. With the sun dying, the world is engulfed with floods, fires, droughts, storms and mass extinctions. So humans band together to move the earth into another solar system, a journey that will take 2,500 years as giant engines propel the planet like a ship, while humans live in giant underground cities. Now 17 years later, teens Qi and Duoduo (Qu and Jaho) skip school and steal thermal suits so they can go to the icy surface. But Jupiter's gravitational pull is too strong, and Earth is in danger of colliding with it. With the engines failing, mankind's survival depends on Qi and Duoduo and a rag-tag group, while Qi's father Peiqiang (Jing) and his Russian cohort Makalov (Sharogradskiy) try to help from the advance navigation ship.

The plot is fairly simplistic, but it's overcomplicated with extra characters and nonstop action chaos. A variety of cool settings are rendered with with elaborate sets and digital effects. And the pacing is relentless, zipping from one cataclysmic set-piece to the next on a scale that might make Roland Emmerich envious. Even if the direction and editing are a mess, the driving energy that holds the interest. And there are quite a few outrageously emotional and heroic moments, plus some solid humour, such as when one frustrated man empties his gun at Jupiter. Or when a group of teens figures out how to save the world with science! It's a shame the film isn't more coherent, because it's big idea is intriguing (it's based on a novel by Cixin Liu). Perhaps having one or two writers, instead of the eight who are credited, might have given the film more focus.

See also: THE WANDERING EARTH II (2023)

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General Magic
dir Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maude; scr Sarah Kerruish, Jonathan Key, Matt Maude
with Andy Hertzfeld, Joanna Hoffman, John Sculley, Marc Porat, Tony Fadell, Michael Stern, Megan Smith, Bill Atkinson, David Hoffman
18/US 1h33 ****

Silicon Valley is apparently full of stories of people inventing the right thing at the wrong time, paving the way for future technology. This pacey documentary traces the fortunes of the team behind General Magic, the most important company that nobody's ever heard of. Inspired by the idea of inventing a new future, Marc Porat imagined the ideal tech beyond the personal computer and designed what we know now as the smartphone in 1989, before mobile phones or internet existed. His team set out to create a tiny device with personal value like jewellery, indispensable, much more than either phone or computer. The staff was the cream of the crop, a spin-off of Apple with a rock star development team. But the public wasn't ready for this yet, and without mass interest, the company failed. Team members who knew this would still be the future went off to create things like eBay and LinkedIn, and years later later the iPod, iPhone and Android.

The film combines new interviews with archival footage, home video and news clips that remind just how much technology has changed since 1990. It's fascinating to watch these young people dream big, coming up with ideas that were wild back then but are everyday now. And to see them develop the hardware to make it work is astonishing, especially as they are creating objects from the ground up. This is a story of unfettered idealism, working to better the world rather than to make a lot of money. It's a vivid depiction of how failure is actually the beginning, not the end. This company was so far ahead of its time that it collapsed, and yet it still changed the lives of literally billions of people.
10.May.19

Critical Week: The art of fashion

A couple of great documentaries were screened to London press this week, starting with The First Monday in May, which explores the build-up to the Met Gala in 2015, at which Rihanna (above) reigned supreme. It's a riveting look backstage! Just as skilful and inventive, but in a completely different style, Author: The JT LeRoy Story reveals the fascinating layers of truth behind Laura Albert's elaborate fiction, posing for 10 years as a young gay male writer.

Also this week, we had a couple of sequels: Seth Rogen and Zac Efron reunite in the witty but not quite as funny sequel Bad Neighbours 2 (aka Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising), while Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska reteam for the much better eye-popping sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass (Depp and Wasikowska were joined by Sacha Baron Cohen, Tim Burton and director James Bobin for an especially lively press conference on Sunday). And there was also Ewan McGregor in the skilful thriller Our Kind of Traitor, Tina Fey in the excellent wartime comedy-drama Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Ethan Hawke in the moody Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue, Penelope Cruz in the artfully moving Spanish drama Ma Ma, and the colourful and very nutty animation of The Angry Birds Movie.

The big press screening this week is for X-Men: Apocalypse, which has had mixed reviews from its fan screening earlier this week. We also have Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys, Rossif Sutherland in River, Iggy Pop in Blood Orange and smaller independent films called Steel and Godless, whatever they are. I'm also attending a bit of theatre this week, and will write about that here too.

Critical Week: A time for reflection

Press screenings always go slightly bonkers at this time of year as critics try desperately to catch up with everything before casting votes in year-end awards. I vote in three awards - the Online Film Critics Society released its nominees this week (the nominations deadline was last Saturday), the London Critics' Circle Film Awards (of which I'm the chair again) has its nominations deadline this Friday, and Galeca's Dorian Awards nominations are due next month. Anyway, in this flurry of screenings, I've seen what just might end up as my favourite film of the year, Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, an inventively animated and staggeringly personal exploration of self-image and human interaction.

Other awards screenings included The Revenant, Alejandro Inarritu's bravura and thoroughly harrowing survival tale starring Leonardo Di Caprio; Joy, the nutty and rather wonderful biopic reuniting Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and writer-director David O Russell; and The Danish Girl, a rather too-pretty biopic but strongly pointed starring the excellent Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander.

Regular releases screened this week included Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's goofy comedy Sisters, Brad and Angelina Jolie Pitt's handsome but stilted drama By the Sea, Jackie Chan and John Cusack's splintered Chinese action epic Dragon Blade, the charming British holiday romance Sparks and Embers, the rightly acclaimed Everest doc Sherpa,  the introspective American indie drama The Surface, and the offbeat Italian micro-budget drama Water Boys. I also took the time to delight in the starry joys of Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray's holiday extravaganza A Very Murray Christmas.

This coming week, the only movie anyone is talking about is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I'll get to see on Tuesday the 15th, a couple of days before it opens. Also screening: Ron Howard's seafaring epic In the Heart of the Sea, the British Winter Olympics biopic Eddie the Eagle, Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell squaring off in Daddy's Home, and Stephen Dorff in American Hero.

Requisite Blog Photos: Let's face it...

Critical week: Watching the world burn

Marc Forster's long-awaited zombie apocalypse movie World War Z was shown to the UK press this past week, seemingly five years after Brad Pitt and crew were marauding around Britain filming it. The first half of the film is an excellent Contagion-style thriller, before things get rather ridiculous. The other most anxiously awaited movie was the prequel Monsters University, which traces Mike and Sulley's earlier days studying to be scarers. It's packed with snappy visual and verbal gags, although the plot races a bit too quickly. And the other big-name movie this week was Admission, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. They're always excellent - I could watch them just sit and chat for two hours - and the film has some great dialog even if the plot isn't up to much.

Further from the mainstream, I caught Ulrich Seidl's second part in his trilogy, Paradise: Faith, an even more razor-sharp pitch-black comedy than Love. From Germany, Men to Kiss is a twisty gay romantic comedy that has it's moments of genuine emotion. The harrowing The Act of Killing documents the 1965 Malaysian massacres with an inventive twist that's utterly mind-spinning, while the almost unnervingly quiet Silence documents a sound recordist trying to escape human noise. And then there were two iconic oldies on the big screen: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the pristinely restored studio-busting 1963 epic Cleopatra, and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho at the BFI Southbank - perhaps the most iconic film ever made introduced by James Franco, who has a Psycho-themed art installation in London all summer.

This coming week features another very late-screening Warner Bros blockbuster: Man of Steel. We also have the animated sequel Despicable Me 2, Kristen Wiig in Girl Most Likely, Nicolas Cage in The Frozen Ground, and Iain Softley's Trap for Cinderella. I'm also currently planning exactly when I head up to Edinburgh for the film festival, which starts on June 19th.