Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Films of the week
THE POST
(2017) 12 ◆
Saturday, 9.15pm, Ch4 ★★★★ Steven Spielberg, one of cinema’s great storytellers, weaves a gripping drama out of one of the biggest news stories of recent US history. But this is more than a film that lays out the procedures and challenges of publishing an earthshattering newspaper story – it’s about two people battling to do the right thing, under enormous pressure. Tom Hanks (above) is The Washington Post’s executive editor, Ben Bradlee, with Meryl Streep as its publisher, Katharine Graham. These are the people who form a tight partnership when, in 1971, they race to break the story – via leaked documents known as the Pentagon Papers – that the US government deceived the American people about the Vietnam War over four administrations.
LAURA
(1944) PG ●
Monday, 2.15pm, BBC2 ★★★★★ Otto Preminger’s magnificent film has all the elements of a murder mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, mixed with the psychological and stylistic elements of film noir. Dana Andrews plays sour detective Mark Mcpherson, who becomes obsessed with murder victim
Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney, above, with Andrews). As he investigates her death, Mark learns that Laura was a woman who compelled the men in her life to love and compete for her. But the film is masterly in its deceptions, and, while it is an effective whodunnit – pivoting around a famous twist – it is also an intense character study of a beautiful, successful woman as seen through the eyes of three very different men. It’s a film about idealisations of gender that don’t turn out well for either sex.