SCREENING GUIDE

MARE OF EASTTOWN Neon

The always fantastic Kate Winslet delivers what critics are calling a “career best” performance in this prestige murder-mystery series. Winslet plays a small-town detective who begins investigating a gruesome local murder while her personal life crumbles around her. The seven-episode, limited series has been called a “gasp-inducer”, which in the context of a mystery is exactly the response you want as a viewer. It’s also been called “dark, dirty and depressing” and a “tough watch”, so you should brace yourself before diving in. This isn’t a CSI-style police procedural. Instead, a lot of this crime-drama’s vibe comes from the inhabitants of the small town, their tangled personal lives and how all of that sprawls into the core mystery.

RIDE OR DIE Netflix

With no superpowers or muscleclinging spandex in sight, this Netflix original film is a style of comic adaptation than we don’t usually see. Based on the manga Gunjo, this Japanese drama has been described as a “sexually charged” story about a friendship that turns murderous. It follows a straight housewife who decades later asks a favour of the gay high school friend who was madly in love with her. That favour? Kill her violent and abusive husband. With hubby dispatched in brutal fashion the pair hightail it. Part road movie, part murder-drama, part love story, Ride or Die zooms over easy categorisation with all the speed of a fleeing getaway car. One critic called this explicit slow-burn of a film a “torrid and emotionally bruising tale of sexuality, class, domestic abuse and murder”, so there’s a lot going on. But if the success of South Korea’s Parasite at last year’s Academy Awards piqued an interest in foreign film then this could be worth checking out.