Film choice

This Happy Breed (1944) TALKING PICTURES TV, 2.15PM ★★★

 David Lean would make the sublime Brief Encounter out of a Noël Coward play only a year after this rather weak effort from the same pairing, which depicts the lives of “ordinary people” between the wars. The Gibbons (Robert Newton and Celia Johnson) are a lower-middle-class family who squabble their way down the years. It’s well acted, but a little flat. Kay Walsh and John Mills co-star.

Serenity (2019) SKY CINEMA PREMIERE, 8.00PM

 Matthew Mcconaughey, Anne Hathaway and Diane Lane are all on the bill, but test audiences were baffled by writer-director Steven Knight’s plot, which melds domestic abuse, sci-fi and fishing. Baker Dill (Mcconaughey) is a fisherman whose ex-wife (Hathaway) is beaten by her husband. She begs him for help – but is reality what it seems? (This Sky Cinema Original is in cinemas today.)

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

BBC ONE, 10.35PM; NI/WALES, 11.05PM; SCOTLAND, 11.35PM ★★★★

Marvel swaps serious superheroes for cartoonish antics in this gem about a group of intergalactic criminals (which include Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana). The gang of miscreants team up to combat a fanatical warlord who’s – guess what – trying to take over the universe. It’s hectic, fast and (a good two years before the hilarious

Deadpool) a lively dose of irreverence.