Idyllic viewing among the vines
Under the Vines TVNZ 1, starts 8pm Wednesday
All across the country, boringly rational types are hissing at the grape-eyed dreamers in their lives: “But we’re not vintners for God’s sake!” It’s the sound of the summer, and it’s the obvious pull quote from Under the Vines, TVNZ’S new coproduction with Acorn TV, the international streaming platform for people who only want to watch the Best of British.
The series is filmed in Central Otago, but more precisely set in the same quirky and uncomplicated version of rural New Zealand as more-popular-overseasthan-they-are-here local productions (The
Brokenwood Mysteries, that rom com where an American expat inherits a knitting shop). Into this idyllic world steps Sydney socialite Daisy (Rebecca Gibney) and disbarred London lawyer Louis (Charles Edwards), both believing they are the sole heirs of a fancy vineyard.
After literally bumping into each other at Queenstown airport baggage claim, the pair soon learn they have been misled by the inept local lawyer (Coen Holloway). The late Stanley Oakley — his uncle, her stepfather — has actually left his winery (plus an annoying French car and two taciturn Kiwi staff members) to both of them, with the instructions to “Do with it what you will”.
Oakley Winery, it turns out, is a total shambles — Old Stan clearly wasn’t a vintner either, nor did he know how to balance the books. But while Louis is hell bent on selling up and getting back to London, Daisy decides to place an unreasonable amount of faith in the vague memory of someone once telling her she had been a vintner in a past life.
So, with a couple of aces up their sleeve in inherited staff members Tippy and Gus, the fish-out-of-water odd couple set about rehabilitating a failing vineyard and uncomplicating their own bigcity rat-race lives. Easy to watch and hard to dislike, it’s a comfortingly familiar country caper.
WORTH WATCHING
Peacemaker
Sky Go and Neon
If there’s one thing we can be sure 2022 will bring, it's about ten more new Marvel shows. But for now it’s the DC Comics cinematic universe’s time to shine with Peacemaker, a spinoff of 2021’s The Suicide Squad (not to be confused with 2016’s Suicide Squad). Written and directed by James Gunn, who also wrote and directed the film (and before that, Marvel’s extremely popular Guardians of the Galaxy movies), this series is all about John Cena’s character (Peacemaker, a merciless killer hell bent on achieving peace) and his origin story. Very much at the comedy end of the superhero spectrum.
The Hungry and the Hairy
Netflix
As we stare down another year with probably not a lot of international travel prospects, it’s time once again to turn to TV for our vicarious holiday thrills. And not many shows do this better than The Hairy and the Hungry, in which we get to ride shotgun with South Korean celebrities Rain (a K-pop icon) and Noh Hungchul (a maniacal entertainer whose main claim to fame seems to be appearing in the Gangnam Style music video) on a motorcycle tour of their country’s many culinary delights. It’s high energy, very funny and will both fuel and satisfy your food and travel cravings.
Landscapers Soho and Sky Go
Until a couple of days ago Landscapers was just a name on several international besttv-of-2021 lists, but good things come to those who wait. It’s got Olivia Colman, which almost immediately makes it a must-watch, alongside David Thewlis as Susan and Christopher Edwards, an unassuming real-life British couple who in 1998 killed Susan’s parents and buried them in the back garden before evading arrest for over a decade. Directed by Will Sharpe, who worked with Colman on the Netflix hidden gem Flowers, the four-part miniseries operates at the darker end of the comedydrama spectrum, delivered with reliably strong performances from the two leads.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK
The Lost Daughter Netflix
Is Olivia Colman the busiest actor in the world right now, or does it just seem that way because every performance is so memorable? Here she is again in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s extremely assured directorial debut, an adaptation of the novel by Italian literary genius Elena Ferrante. Colman plays a professor alone on a working holiday at a Greek seaside resort who becomes fixated on a young mum (Dakota Johnson) who’s part of a group of rowdy fellow holidaymakers. Tense, mysterious and utterly absorbing, the movie deals with themes of motherhood and identity in a way that will stick with you long afterwards.
FROM THE VAULT
Boyhood Netflix, 2014
Filmed annually over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater’s epic coming-of-age drama follows the childhood of Mason Evans Jr (Ellar Coltrane) from the age of six through to adolescence and young adulthood. Understandably very talkedabout on release in 2014, it’s worth (re)watching now the dust has settled to fully appreciate not just a unique and ambitious feat of filmmaking, but a really good film. While young Mason is the centre of the story, it’s the performances of Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as his parents that really stand out. Watching the way their complicated adult lives evolve over the course of the film is just as profound and moving as witnessing their child grow up before our eyes.