Movie picks

SUNDAY

The Queen Mary, Sky Cinema & NOW Horror starring Alice Eve, Joel

Fry, Nell Hudson, Angus Wright, Jim Piddock and directed by Gary Shore.

In the early twentieth century, shipping lines competed to be the fastest to complete a transatlantic crossing.

But among the most famous recordholders was the RMS Queen Mary, which held the record for 14 years, but now stands encased in concrete at Long Beach, California, where it has been used for many years as a luxury hotel and tourist attraction.

The ship has a lengthy history of visitors reporting seeing ghosts and visions in its rooms and on its decks, making it the perfect setting for paranormal goings-on on the big screen.

In The Queen Mary, a haunting story is unravelled between the ship’s heyday in the late 1930s and the present and tells the story of two families whose lives become violently entangled.

MONDAY

Flag Day, Film4, 9pm Network premiere of this crime drama directed by and starring Sean Penn and based on Jennifervogel’s 2004 memoir Flim-flam Man: A True Family History. Also starring Penn’s real-life daughter Dylan as Jennifer and son Hopper Jack as Jennifer’s younger brother Nick.

Johnvogel (Sean Penn) is a counterfeiter and mostly-absent father.

The opening shot is of helicopters chasing a loan vehicle under a mythically-big sky before cutting to Jennifer sitting in a US Marshall’s office being told that her father is on the lamb. This is 1992.

Flash back to the 1970s and John is younger and the kids don’t know why he isn’t around much.

But when he is around, Jennifer sucks up his attention like a sponge, and he plays the good dad.

But when he inevitably disappears, it’s their mother Patty (Katheryn Winnick) who gets grief from the kids and must find ways to cope, both financially and emotionally.

But whatever fairy tales parents tell their children, they eventually start to piece things together.

The question is whether the gradual realisations lead Jennifer to reject her father, admire him more or reach some complex middle ground.

THURSDAY

45 Years, Film4, 11.40pm Drama starring Tom Courtenay and Oscar-nominated Charlotte Rampling, directed by Andrew Haigh.

Kate (Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Courtenay) are a happily married retired couple who are about to celebrate their 45th anniversary.

A week before the big party, Geoff receives a letter telling him the body of Katya, a girl he loved but who vanished in a mountaineering accident in Switzerland over half a century ago, has been discovered.

Now that Katya has reappeared, ageless, from the ice, her ghostly presence intrudes on the Mercers’ elebrations, as Geoff begins to behave strangely, tumbling uncontrollably into his inner vision of the past.

This time of crisis causes Kate to question their love and marriage.

MONDAY

Wonka, Sky Store Premiere

Based on the extraordinary character at the centre of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl’s most iconic children’s book and one of the best-selling children’s books of all time,“wonka”tells the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we know today.

Featuring an all-star cast including Timothée Chalamet, Hugh Grant, Calah Lane, Keegan-michael Key, Paterson Jospeh, Matt Lucas and a soundtrack composed by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, this truly is a magical tale not to be missed!