Top films to watch on TV this week
WEDNESDAY
On Chesil Beach (2017) BBC2, 9p.m. Gifted violinist Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and history graduate Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) prepare to spend their first night together as husband and wife in a hotel located close to Chesil Beach.
As afternoon bleeds into evening, a mosaic of flashbacks illuminates the couple’s radically different backgrounds. While the bride is at the mercy of strict moral codes of the era, the groom draws on his relationship with his ‘ brain-damaged’ mother Marjorie (Anne-Marie Duff ) to embrace his passions. Tension in the room builds gradually to the moment Florence and Edward must consummate their marriage.
On Chesil Beach is an artfully composed character study of youthful naivete and small, telling gestures such as Florence’s flinch when one particular hand touches her shoulder.
THURSDAY
The Nice Guys (2016) ITV4, 11p.m. Hired heavy Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is paid by a young woman called Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) to scare off the low-rent private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling), who has been asking for her around town.
The first meeting of these two men ends in bloodshed and broken bones, but Jackson and Holland reluctantly agree to work together when Amelia subsequently vanishes without trace. Unfortunately, a hitman called John Boy (Matt Bomer) is also on her trail.
The Nice Guys is an enjoyable missing person’s caper set in sexually liberated 1977 Los Angeles. Crowe and Gosling relish the to and fro of writer-director Shane Black’s snappy dialogue as they gleefully contend with fashions of the era.
FRIDAY
The Lady in the Van (2015) BBC1, 10.45p.m.
Playwright Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) moves into a house in Camden - and soon after, a cantankerous woman called Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith) settles in the same street in her ramshackle vehicle.
Alan foolishly agrees to let her take up temporary residence on his driveway. Months turn into years and the playwright despairs as he becomes Miss Shepherd’s guardian and suffers regular visits from interfering social worker Miss Briscoe (Cecilia Noble).
Teasingly billed as ‘a mostly true story’, The Lady in the Van is an entertaining screen adaptation of Bennett’s award-winning 1999 stage work. Smith reprises her theatre role as the eponymous tramp, unleashing an array of withering putdowns that would surely have her imperious dowager in Downton Abbey clucking with approval.
SATURDAY
Spectre (2015) ITV, 8.30p.m.
The last theatrically released Bond adventure to date sees the newly appointed M (Ralph Fiennes) battling political forces, including Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), to protect the integrity of MI6 following a merger with MI5.
A cryptic message reveals ghosts from Bond’s past and 007 (Daniel Craig) follows a chain of evidence that leads to Dr Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), daughter of fugitive Mr White (Jesper Christensen).
Aided by technical wizard Q (Ben Whishaw) and plucky agent Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Bond criss-crosses the globe 10 and infiltrates a menacing organisation named SPECTRE, fronted by the enigmatic Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz).
A robust tale of espionage and dark family secrets that can’t quite live up to its tour-de-force opening at a Mexican day of the dead parade.
SUNDAY
The Mountain Between Us (2017) Channel 4, 9.m.
Storm clouds amass over Salt Lake City, grounding all commercial flights. Photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) is poised to marry fiance Mark (Dermot Mulroney) the following day in New York.
She charters a two-person plane from avuncular pilot Walter (Beau Bridges), and offers the second seat to Dr Ben Bass (Idris Elba). During the flight, Walter suffers a stroke and the plane careens into a snow-laden peak in the High Uintas Wilderness.
Walter perishes; Ben suffers bruises and broken ribs, and Alex’s leg is injured. When she regains consciousness, the strangers confront the reality that Walter didn’t log a flight plan so they are alone in the sub-zero wilderness.
Based on the novel by Charles Martin, director Hany Abu-Assad’s drama remains airborne thanks to solid performances from Winslet and Elba.
God’s Own Country (2017) Channel 4, 11.10p.m.
Shot on location in West Yorkshire, writer-director Francis Lee’s award-winning, heart-breaking love story draws comparisons to Brokeback Mountain - albeit in chillier surroundings - for its tenderly observed coupling of a disenchanted farmer’s son and a Romanian migrant worker.
John Saxby (Josh O’Connor) bears the heavy burden of running his family’s farm now that his father Martin (Ian Hart) is partially paralysed following a stroke.
Adding to his woes, John is wrestling with his sexuality and he engages in fumbling encounters with local men, without any emotional engagement.
As the lambing season approaches, Martin hires a casual worker, Gheorghe Ionescu (Alec Secareanu), to help John repair damage to a stone wall. The two men bed down in an old outhouse and sparks of passion fly.
MONDAY
12 Years a Slave (2013) Film4, 9p.m. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives with his family in 1841 Washington City. Following a meeting with two seemingly respectable gentlemen, Solomon is sold into slavery. His first master, Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), is kind - up to a point - but fate delivers the lead character to sadistic Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).
This master spites his unfeeling wife (Sarah Paulson) by taking a shine to one of the slave girls, Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o), and Solomon is caught in the crossfire.
Based on Northup’s autobiography of the same name, 12 Years a Slave made a big splash at the Oscars, and deservedly so.
Steve McQueen’s bravura third feature is a sensitive yet unflinching portrait of suffering that delivers its message of brutality and endurance with the full force of a sledgehammer to the solar plexus.