FILMS of the week TV Highlights
1 CRAZY RICH ASIANS Tonight, BBC1, 10.30pm
New York University lecturer Rachel
Chu (Constance Wu) is invited by her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) to Singapore to attend the wedding of his good friends Colin (Chris Pang) and Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno). Rachel is blissfully unaware that Nick is the golden boy of Singapore’s wealthiest dynasty headed by ferocious matriarch Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), who expects her boy to marry into money and is deeply unimpressed with Nick’s choice of partner. Based on the novel by Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians is a frothy romantic comedy full of beautiful, privileged people falling in love across the class divide.
2 PHANTOM THREAD Tomorrow, BBC2, 11.15pm
Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is the creative dynamo of a luxury fashion house in 1950s London. His sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) presides over the seamstresses and manages Reynolds’ romantic vacillations. During a seaside break he embarks on an affair with a waitress (Vicky Krieps), whose presence back in the capital causes friction.
3 PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE Tuesday, BBC2, 11.45pm
In this French drama, 18th-century artist Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is hired to paint a portrait of the aristocratic Heloise (Adele Haenel, with Merlant, left), which her mother can show to a prospective husband. Heloise won’t sit for an artist, so Marianne poses as her companion and secretly paints her at night. Despite the subterfuge, the pair grow close.
4 YOUNG ADULT Wednesday, BBC3, 11pm
Pitch-black comedy starring Charlize Theron as Mavis, left, a hard-drinking writer who makes her living penning teen novels. After an email from her ex, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) announcing the birth of their daughter, Mavis travels to her hometown, determined to show Buddy that he really belongs with her.
5 THE IMITATION GAME Thursday, BBC4, 9pm
Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch, left) sits in a police interrogation room facing a charge of indecency with a 19-year-old man. In flashback, Alan arrives at Bletchley Park where a group of the country’s keenest minds try to break the Nazis’ Enigma code. This is a handsomely crafted tribute to the code-breaking mathematician.
6 VICE Friday, BBC2, 11.05pm
Engrossing biopic. In 1963 Wyoming, a young Dick Cheney (Christian Bale, left) is a disappointment to his sweetheart Lynne (Amy Adams). In response, Dick secures a White House internship, and over years manoeuvres himself into the position of running mate to George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) during the 2000 US presidential election.
7 JOJO RABBIT Saturday, Channel 4, 9pm
In this daring comedy drama, Hitler Youth member Johannes Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) can’t bring himself to kill a rabbit during training, so leans on unusual imaginary friend, the Fuhrer (Taika Waititi, left with Davis) for advice. The 10-year-old’s life gets even more complicated when a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) is found hiding in his house.