Also showing
It’s good to see a glut of cinema for younger viewers arriving this week, considering that the traditional run of summer blockbusters has been robbed from us.
The title of The Fairy Princess and The Unicorn (selected cinemas, check listings) alone sounds like catnip to a certain demographic, and the trailer suggests this is the case. This looks to have all the requisite tropes, from baby dragons to evil fairy queens, with lots of soft and lush fairytale animation throughout.
In the same territory is Snow Queen: Mirrorlands (selected cinemas, check listings). Cynics may instantly deem this animated epic to be little more than a cash-in on the Frozen frenzy that we live in these days. The plot for this, involving an alternate world of ice to where a nasty king has banished his enemies, could lift it above pastiche, however.
The Scooby-Doo franchise shows no signs of throwing in the towel. Scoob! (on demand today) boasts a never-before-seen origins story for the enduring friendship of Shaggy and his canine companion and how they came to hook up with the rest of the team.
Mark Wahlberg, Zac Efron and Amanda Seyfried feature (improbably) in the voice cast.
Scoob! will be on demand for a limited time, as will Finding The Way Back, a high-school sports drama starring Ben Affleck. He plays a fallen basketball star who gets another shot at glory when he is asked to coach a young team who need a helping hand. Not exactly reinventing the wheel, then, but this template exists for a reason.
Another title about youth and aspiration is In Your Hands (Curzon Home Cinema). Ludovic Bernard’s drama tells of a young piano prodigy from the wrong side of the tracks who is discovered playing a trainstation piano in Paris. Encouraged to compete in an upcoming competition, he becomes a fish out of water away from his gangland upbringing. Kristin Scott Thomas and Lambert Wilson star.
Those wishing for some resonant family drama should investigate Litigante (Curzon Home Cinema) ,a new film from rising Colombian filmmaker Franco Lolli. A mother and daughter, both lawyers, clash about ethical dilemmas amid the elder woman’s cancer diagnosis.