Overlooked film is well worth a look

With our cinema screens dominated by blockbuster and high-concept, star-driven tales, that means many titles never get to see the inside of a movie theatre here.

One of those over the past few months (despite good reviews and a decent plug on The Graham Norton Show) was the evocative drama Wildlife (out now on DVD/Blu-ray and various streaming services).

Featuring the Oscarnominated talents of Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, actor Paul Dano’s (Escape at Dannemora, There Will Be Blood) directorial debut is a slow-burning but searing portrait of a family and marriage in crisis. A kind of What Maisie Knew meets Revolutionary Road, it’s the story of Jeanette (Mulligan) and Jerry (Gyllenhaal) Brinson, as seen through the eyes of their 14-year-old son Joe (Paper Planes’ Ed Oxenbould).

Newly arrived in Great Falls, Montana, the trio’s happy household is threatened when Jerry loses his golf club job on account of ‘‘overstepping boundaries’’ with the members. While he mulls his next move, Jeanette takes up a position as a swimming instructor at the YMCA and Joe chips in with a few hours after school as a photography assistant. However, both are shocked when Jerry announces that he’s off to join the fight against the area’s forest fires – a role that will see him absent for months.

Angry and hurt,Jeanette seeks solace elsewhere and, much to Joe’s horror, seems hell bent on a path of self-destruction.

Equally dramatic, but aimed at a far younger audience, Every Day (DVD/Blu-ray, various streaming services) puts a new spin on the Groundhog Day/Quantum Leap/Before I Falltype of sci-fi.

Our heroine Rhiannon’s (Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Angourie Rice) fairly typical teenage life is upended when she encounters a being who claims to inhabit the body of somebody new every 24 hours. As she realises ‘‘A’’ only wants the best for her, Rhiannon begins to fall for the gender-fluid shape-shifter’s charms.

Finally, Auckland fans of Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, TV’s Hannibal) should head to Rialto Newmarket to check out Arctic.

In Brazilian director Joe Penna’s drama, the Danish actor tries to stay alive in the icy north, the sole survivor of a plane crash.