Aubrey Malone
Elle Fanning stars in
The Roads Not Taken Anyone interested in seeing good films has to think outside the box – no pun intended – in a wish to avoid the dross that’s often inflicted on us on the terrestrial TV channels.
Thanks to Netflix, live streaming and other digital platforms I’ve been mentioning recently there are thankfully more choices available to us than usual, even (especially?) in these unprecedented times.
Hope Gap is a moving drama about a young man (Josh O’Connor) trying to come to terms with the fact that his father (Bill Nighy) is leaving his mother (Annete Bening) after 29 years of marriage. The news is imparted to him on a visit by them to him. Bening struggles to find a new way of living outside the three-decade marital cocoon.
The Broken Hearts Gallery is about a twentysomething art gallery assistant who keeps mementos of all her broken relationships, thereby setting up a movement for other incurable romantics like herself.
The Roads Not Taken has an equally interesting concept at its core: the number of ‘what ifs’ in our lives if we took different paths to the ones we did. Javier Bardem floats through different scenarios with his daughter Molly (Elle Fanning) in this strange tale.
Streaming on Premier Access is Mulan, an action drama produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It features a Chinese maiden who disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father. Disney+ has Phineas and Ferb, an animated film with two stepbrothers, Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, their sister Candace and their pet platypus.
If you have Netflix you can watch I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a disquieting film centering on a young woman trapped at the farm of her boyfriend’s parents. It’s based on Iain Reed’s controversial novel of the same name and is directed by Academy Award winner Charlie Kaufman, who gave us the equally cryptic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Unforgettable
Also on Netflix is Rising Phoenix, a documentary about the Paralympic Games, and Rached, a series based on the notorious Nurse Rached from Milos Forman’s unforgettable One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Louise Fletcher won an Oscar for playing the role after most of Hollywood’s A-listers turned it down.
Les Miserables isn’t to be confused with the famous Victor Hugo novel of the same name. It’s set in present-day Paris and deals with police brutality and racism. It was inspired by the 2005 riots in that city.
Along similar lines is La Haine, Mathier Kassovitz’ powerful drama about a day in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs 24 hours after a violent riot.
It was made in 1995 and is being re-released to commemorate its 25th anniversary.
Wolfwalkers is an animated adventure film. A young girl comes to Ireland with the intention of wiping out the last wolf pack; she changes her mind after befriending a wild girl who introduces her to the species of the title. Strange but beguiling.