The Herald - The Herald Magazine
THE WEEK’S BEST FILMS
SATURDAY The Red Shoes (1948) BBC Two, 1.30pm
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 classic was nominated for five Academy Awards (it won two for Best Art Direction and Best Music). Young dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) catches the eye of ruthless ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who takes her under his wing. Vicky blossoms and Lermontov considers her as a potential prima ballerina. To test this promise, he casts Vicky as the lead in a new ballet called The Red Shoes and asks Julian Craster (Marius Goring) to compose the score. At first, Vicky and Julian clash but they eventually fall in love, which creates friction with Lermontov, who demands absolute devotion from his dancers.
Room (2015) Channel 4, 9pm
From birth, Jack (Jacob Tremblay) has only known the four walls and skylight of the squalid single room he shares with his Ma (Brie Larson). The boy is unaware that Ma was abducted as a teenager by a man called Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), who is holding them hostage. Despite her ordeal, Ma protects Jack from the sickening reality as best she can. She concocts a plan to get Jack away from Old Nick and hopefully into the arms of her parents Robert (William H Macy) and Nancy (Joan Allen). Based on the book of the same name by Emma Donoghue, Room is a riveting drama that will have you biting our nails down to the cuticle.
SUNDAY The Equalizer (2014) Channel 5, 9pm
Widower Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has turned his back on his past as a covert government operative and fashioned a quiet life in suburbia. He becomes a regular at the local diner, where he befriends a prostitute called Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz). When she ends up in hospital, battered at the hands of her Russian pimp Slavi (David Meunier), McCall exacts revenge. Justice seemingly prevails, but unfortunately Slavi and his goons are a link in a bigger chain. Memories of Edward Woodward’s refined approach to crime-fighting in the TV version of The Equalizer are blown to smithereens by this big-screen rendering as director Antoine Fuqua seizes every opportunity for carnage.
The Lunchbox (2013) BBC Four, 9pm
Irrfan Khan plays lonely widower Saajan, who is consumed by grief after the loss of his beloved wife. Out of the blue, he mistakenly receives a lunchbox filled with delicacies which have been cooked by Ila (Nimrat Kaur), which was intended for her husband. Saajan is bewitched by the flavours and textures of the meal and subsequently receives a note from Ila, apologising for the mix-up. They begin a correspondence that has a profound effect on their lives. When Ila discovers her husband has been unfaithful, she writes to Saajan for advice and they contemplate a move to Bhutan to start afresh.
MONDAY Away We Go (2009) Film4, 1.40am
Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes’s Away We Go is an entertaining ensemble piece that paints a vivid portrait of life in contemporary America and explores its many foibles. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph star as expectant parents Burt and Verona, who decide to leave behind their backwoods existence for the sake of their imminent child’s prospects. The resulting madcap road trip sees them cross paths with a variety of unusual characters, including oddball but well-meaning friends Lily (Allison Janney) and LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal), as the couple search for the perfect location in which to raise their child.
TUESDAY Die Hard (1988) Film4, 9pm
New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) attempts to build bridges with his estranged wife by heading to her high-rise building in Los Angeles. However, he has barely had a chance to unpack before a bunch of Euro-crooks storm the building, take hostages and demand the release of political prisoners. However, there’s more to their demands than meet the eye. Nearly 30 years after its release, Die Hard remains one of the best action thrillers ever made.
WEDNESDAY Ida (2013) Film4, 11.15pm
Polish-born British director Pawel Pawlikowski, who won a Bafta for My Summer of Love, films in his homeland for the first time in this emotional 1960sset drama. Eighteen-year-old orphan Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) has been raised in a convent under the watchful gaze of the Mother Superior (Halina Skoczynska). As Anna prepares to become a nun, Mother Superior insists the young woman reconnect with her past by visiting her sole living relative. So, Anna abandons the safety of the convent and travels to meet her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a cynical Communist Party insider, who discloses that Anna’s real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation devastates Anna and she embarks on a journey to unlock the secrets of her tragic past. Cyrus (2010) Channel 4, 1.55am Divorced film editor John (John C Reilly) is stuck in a rut seven years after the break-up of his marriage to Jamie (Catherine Keener). Forced to attend a party, John meets and flirts with Molly (Marisa Tomei). He is smitten and after a couple of dates, John follows Molly home where he meets the other man in her life - grown-up son Cyrus (Jonah Hill). The 21-year-old musician makes it clear he would rather sabotage the fledgling romance than lose his mother to John. Thus begins a war of attrition between suitor and scion. It may have some of the trappings of a grossout comedy, but Cyrus is a humorous and sometimes painful dissection of modern family life.
THURSDAY Morning Glory (2010) Film4, 6.50pm
Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) accepts an offer from New York network manager Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum), who needs a producer for the station’s ailing breakfast show, Daybreak, which ranks a lowly third in the ratings. Arriving on set, Becky discovers that co-anchors Paul McVee (Ty Burrell) and Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) are at loggerheads. So, Becky bravely fires Paul and aggressively pursues Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) as an unlikely replacement.
FRIDAY A Simple Plan (1998) BBC Two, 1.05am
Three friends - brothers Hank (the late Bill Paxton) and Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) and their bud Lou (Brent Briscoe) – stumble upon a downed light aircraft in the snow-laden Minnesota backwoods containing one dead pilot and $4 million in unmarked bills. Do the trio hand the money in to the authorities or do they hang on to it and pray no-one ever finds out?