FILMS OF THE WEEK

THE BIG MOVIE THE LITTLE STRANGER

(2018) 12 ◆ Saturday, 9pm, Ch4 ★★★★ Here’s a very English ghost story, based on the novel by Sarah Waters and set in a creaky old country house in 1940s Warwickshire – and if you’re willing to dig deeper, it offers a great deal more than spooky frights. Domhnall Gleeson stars as Dr Faraday, a man so icily cool that you wonder if he has a soul. He is called to the run-down Hundreds Hall by the Ayres family – battle-scarred veteran Roderick (Will Poulter), his sister, Caroline (Ruth Wilson, above, with Gleeson), and their mother (Charlotte Rampling). Hundreds Hall has a sinister presence lurking in its shadowy corners, and it means the family harm. As Faraday inveigles himself into the troubled clan, his role in events becomes more and more concerning.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE A ROOM WITH A VIEW

(1985) PG ● Sunday, 5pm, Film4 ★★★★ From the celebrated Merchant Ivory film company, this elegant romantic drama, based on E.M. Forster’s novel, follows Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter, above) as she challenges the constraints imposed on her by Edwardian society. Full of wit and even a little bit of skinny-dipping cheek, the film is not stuffy or repressed in its presentation. As it opens in the Italian city of Florence, young Lucy and her chaperone (Maggie Smith) meet a group of free-thinking English visitors, including a spirited romance writer (Judi Dench), kindly Mr Emerson (Denholm Elliott) and his liberated son, George (Julian Sands). Her passions ignited in Florence, Lucy is banished back to England, but when the Emersons reappear, Lucy can only suppress her true feelings for so long.