The Herald - The Herald Magazine
THIS WEEK’S BEST FILMS
Holt gets a lot of the best lines.
My Feral Heart (2016) (BBC2, 11.15pm)
Steven Brandon delivers a powerful performance in this touching drama. He plays Luke, a young man with Down’s syndrome, who has been acting as a carer for his mother. Following her death, he is forced to move into a residential home, where he struggles with the loss of both his mum and his independence. He does begin to strike up friendships with care worker Eve (Shana Swash) and Pete (Will Rastall), who is carrying out community service, but it’s when he discovers a mysterious, seemingly feral girl (Pixie Le Knot) in the countryside around the home that Luke really regains a sense of purpose. That latter subplot never quite gels with the rest of the film, but there’s still much to admire here.
THURSDAY
All the President’s Men (1976) (BBC4, 10pm)
Made only two years after the events which it depicts took place, All the President’s Men won four Oscars, including Best Screenplay for William Goldman, the man who also wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Marathon Man. The stars of the two aforementioned movies, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, take the leads as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein respectively who, in 1974, were reporters on the Washington Post newspaper. The pair were assigned to investigate a break-in at the Watergate Hotel, but ended up unearthing scandal and corruption at the White House which resulted in President Richard Nixon’s infamous resignation. The film works because rather than going for an obvious documentary feel to the production, director Alan J Pakula shot it as an edge-of-your-seat thriller.
Lucy (2014) (ITV4, 10pm)
Carefree American student Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is enjoying her new life in Taiwan until her boyfriend persuades her to deliver a briefcase on his behalf. The recipient turns out to be sadistic Korean drug lord Mr Jang (Choi Min-sik). He knocks Lucy unconscious and when she awakes, she discovers the mob has surgically
the tourism boom created huge wealth but may also have contributed to climate change.