Aubrey Malone
Schumacher There are more twists and turns in The Weekend Away than the road from Dublin to Ballyjamesduff. It’s about a young woman who goes missing after a night out with her best friend in Croatia. Who’s responsible? At one stage I suspected four different people. It was none of them! Okay so it’s popcorn entertainment but it will keep you guessing right up to the last few minutes.
Leighton Meester, the heroine, is one of those actresses who can look different in almost every shot. No matter who else is in the frame you find yourself watching her. I saw her as a psychotic character in The Roommate some years ago and she was equally compelling.
Schumacher is a documentary about the famous racing driver Michael Schumacher. He was involved in a freakish accident in 2013 that changed his life irrevocably. It happened when he was on a skiing holiday. He hit his head off a rock while careering down a slope, suffering profound brain injuries as a result.
Some people felt he might have been better off to have died. He was placed in an induced coma. He’s been home for some years now. His family are tight-lipped about his present condition. Last year they took a legal action against a German magazine that published an ‘interview’ with him which turned out to be AI-generated: a worrying sign of our times.
Schumacher examines his life as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time rather than dwelling on his current predicament. How weird that a man who appeared to have the proverbial nine lives on the track could be brought so low by a seemingly innocuous incident.
Films
Despite the Falling Snow is a fairly decent Russian spy thriller. I’m not a fan of films that have two constantly juxtaposing time frames, but Rebecca Ferguson is always watchable, and the cinematography is excellent. I just wish there was more of a story. It’s like a beautiful box of chocolates you can’t eat.
Deadly Switch is one of those films that would have been fine if it wasn’t for the spoiler in the title. Why do filmmakers do things like this? If they didn’t, we would have been more intrigued about who was stalking the young girl at its centre – and why. It becomes a bit ridiculous towards the end, but it has an intriguing premise. The plot twists – like in The Weekend Away – will keep you from hitting that remote.
I binge-watched all six episodes of Lies and Deceit in one day. That’s five hours of a fairly ordinary story about a girl who claims she was sexually abused by a surgeon.
There’s bad Spanish dubbing. It isn’t too surprising where the lies and deceit are coming from but that’s the thing about mini-series: they get in on you like any other addiction. It’s difficult not to click “Next Episode” after the last one ends.
Try to fight it.