The best on the box
Top television picks for the week ahead.
James Croot’s I Saw the Light, 8.30pm, Saturday, Rialto
Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen star in this 2016 biopic of country-western singer Hank Williams. ‘‘Hiddleston’s intense performance lends a little frisson to an otherwise familiar, if gorgeously-mounted tale about a troubled musical genius who is inevitably, gruellingly, felled by his demons,’’ wrote Screen International ‘s Fionnuala Halligan.
Brief Encounter, 8.30pm, Sunday, Rialto
Classic 1945 British romantic drama about a woman tempted to cheat on her husband when she meets a man at a railway station. ‘‘One of the most vivid, impassioned and painfully believable love stories ever committed to celluloid,’’ wrote Time Out magazine’s Tom Huddleston.
The Dance Exponents: Why Does Love? 8.30pm, Sunday, TVNZ1
New feature-length tale dramatising the story of one of New Zealand’s most iconic bands. Jordan Luck (Jordan Mooney) and Dave Gent (Matariki Whatarau) met as teens and formed a band called The Dance Exponents. Billed as ‘‘a rocking insight into New Zealand music in the 1980s’’, it promises to cover the rise, fall, and eventual resurgence of the group.
The Wolfpack, 8.30pm, Tuesday, Maori TV
Much like 2003’s Capturing the Friedmans, Crystal Moselle’s 2015 documentary looks at a bizarre family dynamic. Locked away from society in a Manhattan apartment, the six Angulo brothers and their sister have learned about the outside world
Casino Royale, 7.30pm, Thursday, Three
New Zealand director Martin Campbell helped reinvigorate the Bond franchise for a second time with this 2006 thriller which saw Daniel Craig’s 007 take on a weapons dealer in a high-stakes game of poker. ‘‘Turns Bond into a human being again – a gruffly charming yet volatile chap who may be the swank king stud of the Western world, but who still has room for rage, fear, vulnerability, love,’’ wrote Entertainment Weekly‘s Owen Gleiberman.