MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN

MANIAC

(Netflix Original)

THIS is fantastically bonkers.

Set in a New York that isn’t entirely futuristic and yet isn’t entirely now, Netflix’s new 10-part series, available from today, stars Emma Stone and Jonah Hill as Annie and Owen, a pair of strangers who sign up to a weird pharmaceutical trial.

They’re both pretty screwed-up individuals, each with a troubled past, so this mysterious ground-breaking treatment surely seems worth a go, not least because the guy who’s invented it (played by Justin Theroux) claims it’ll permanently fix any mind-related problem you care to name. Better still, there’ll be no scary side-effects. None at all. Definitely not. None whatsoever. Well, probably not…

ON CHESIL BEACH (15) (Download, DVD and Blu-ray)

THE very early 60s, before the decade became swinging and liberated, were suffocatingly repressed.

Especially when it came to sex. Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle are Florence and Edward, a pair of newlyweds from significantly different backgrounds whose Dorset honeymoon, at a stuffily joyless hotel, is infused with tension as they nervously prepare to sleep together for the first time.

LIFE OF THE PARTY (12) (Download, DVD and Blu-ray)

FOR her latest comic outing, Melissa McCarthy plays Deanna, a cruelly dumped middle-aged mum and housewife who decides, to hell with it, she’s heading back to college.

So, yes, there’s comic potential by the bucketload, not least because Deanna will be attending the same place as daughter Maddie (Molly Gordon), who’s understandably rather freaked out by the idea. Even so, you can’t help feeling this film could be so much funnier.

It’s got a likeable feel, some decent gags and a fair few chucklesome moments, particularly as Deanna starts to throw herself into the whole experience, but its comedy feels too thin, placing way too much expectation on its star’s shoulders.

THE BREADWINNER (12) (Download, DVD and Blu-ray)

THIS inspiring animation tells the tale of Parvana, an 11-year-old Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy to support her family after her father gets hauled off to jail by Taliban thugs. HOT SHOTS: Emma Stone and Jonah Hill in Maniac