MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN
LOVE SIMON (12) (Download now, DVD from Monday)
AT first glance, this might seem a ridiculously formulaic film – a US high school romcom ticking every box.
But besides being way above average in the likeability stakes, there’s one major factor that makes it stand out. Namely, that our main character, 17-year-old Simon (Nick Robinson), has yet to tell the world that he’s gay. And this is a “huge-ass secret” – to quote his own words – he’s unsure how to handle. When Simon makes contact online with a classmate in the same boat, he makes it his mission to discover who this other guy is. But a blackmailing fellow student is about to stir things up.
ISLE OF DOGS (PG) (Download now, DVD and Blu-ray from Monday) DIRECTOR Wes Anderson’s oddly captivating stop-motion tale tells the story of Atari, a young Japanese boy searching for his dog on a grim island to which a city’s entire canine population has been ruthlessly dispatched. Voiceover stars include Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray. OUR GIRL: COMPLETE SERIES THREE (15)
(DVD)
GLUTTON for punishment that she is, army medic Corporal Georgie Lane (Michelle Keegan) reports back for duty, just in time to head off with her 2-Section pals to fresh danger zones and land herself in yet more life-threatening grief. Also out this week is a DVD box set containing series 1-3.
WONDERSTRUCK (PG)
(Download, DVD and Blu-ray)
WITH a first-class cast including Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, this is effectively two richly imaginative stories in one, set half a century apart. Each features a deaf kid looking to solve a mystery and gain a greater understanding of their place in the world.
Orphan Ben (Oakes Fegley) flees his home in Minnesota for New York soon after his mother’s death in 1977, anxious to learn more about her past.
While 50 years earlier we find inquisitive young Rose (Millicent Simmonds) heading to the same city, hoping to meet the silent movie actress with whom she’s become obsessed.