Pick of the week
The Electric State
In between Avengers outings, Anthony and Joe Russo dip into dystopian fiction with this sparky adventure. A cross between Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence and Toy Story, it’s set in the aftermath of a human v robot war that humans won due to neural headsets invented by Stanley Tucci’s tech grandee. Millie Bobby Brown is our heroine, an orphan who goes on a quest into the “exclusion zone”, where the sentient machines are corralled, after a little robot turns up claiming to be her dead brother. Chris Pratt is a dodgy trader (with a heart of gold, naturally) who accompanies her into a land of weird and wonderful bots, voiced by the likes of Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson and Brian Cox.
Out now, Netflix
Bridesmaids
Going to the chapel … (from left) Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, Rose Byrne, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids. Photograph: Universal Pictures/Allstar
“It’s coming out of me like lava!” This 2011 comedy is justly famous for one particular food poisoning scene, but it’s a hoot from start to finish. A career high for its director, Paul Feig, and most of the cast, it stars Kristen Wiig (who also co-wrote) as the sad’n’single Annie, who is asked by Maya Rudolph’s Lillian to be her maid of honour. She soon finds herself in a competition with Rose Byrne’s prettier, richer Helen for Lillian’s favour – which leads to a series of disasters. Melissa McCarthy steals the show, which is some feat in such august comic company.
Saturday 15 March, 9pm, ITV2
Skincare
Glow-up … Elizabeth Banks as Hope Goldman in Skincare. Photograph: Universal Pictures
Hope (Elizabeth Banks) is a perma-smiling beautician to the stars in LA, and is about to launch a new product line when a competitor opens up across the street. Soon, she is getting anonymous calls, her tyres are slashed and her email account is hacked. Assuming the rival is to blame she fights back, aided by “life coach” friend Jordan (Lewis Pullman). But appearances can be deceptive. A mix of woman-in-peril thriller and beauty industry satire, its success rests on Banks’s finely contoured performance, alternately fierce and fragile.
Sunday 16 March, 10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
The Ghost and Mrs Muir
Romantic fantasy … Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Photograph: Cinetext/20 Century Fox/Allstar
Joseph Mankiewicz’s romantic fantasy may be set in a Californian approximation of 1900s England, with accents to match, but it’s also a touching drama about life’s ebbs and flows. Gene Tierney plays the titular widow, Lucy, who moves with her daughter and servant to a house on the coast haunted by Capt Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). After she flatly refuses to be spooked by him, they become close. Harrison’s salty sea-dog character – all “belay” this and “blasted” that – skirts cliche initially but gains pathos when George Sanders’s comically lascivious suitor appears.
Wednesday 19 March, 11am, Film4
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The Old Man & the Gun
Warm-hearted … Robert Redford as Forrest Tucker in The Old Man & the Gun. Photograph: Photo by Eric Zachanowich/Entertainment One
An actor at the end of a storied career plays a criminal eking out the last few days of his. In David Lowery’s “mostly true” US crime drama set in 1981, Robert Redford oozes charm as gentleman bank robber Forrest Tucker. He and his two ageing colleagues steal their way across the US south in a warm-hearted, elegaic story of a man who is a thief by vocation. There are sly nods to the western world of the Sundance Kid, while Sissy Spacek is the woman who may – or may not – finally change his mind.
Thursday 20 March, 7.15pm, Film4
Birdy
Traumatic … Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine in Birdy. Photograph: Maximum Film/Alamy
A neglected entry in the slew of Vietnam war movies released in the 1980s, Alan Parker’s drama is an affecting tale of childhood friendship and trauma, with a cracking Peter Gabriel score. Nicolas Cage throws his all into the role of injured US soldier Al (he even had two teeth extracted to simulate his character’s facial injury) who visits his old best mate, mute war veteran Birdy (Matthew Modine), in a military psychiatric facility. Flashbacks to their teenage scrapes in Philly and Birdy’s escalating obsession with birds and flying offer clues to his breakdown.
Friday 21 March, 6am, 3.55pm, Sky Cinema Greats
Sweet Sue
Terrific … Maggie O’Neill in Sweet Sue.
On this evidence, Leo “son of Mike” Leigh is clearly a chip off the old block. The lives of working-class people are made complex, vital and tragic in his comedy drama following party shop owner Sue (Maggie O’Neill). She’s had her troubles, but after meeting strong, silent biker Ron at her brother’s funeral things look up. Sadly, he’s silent because he’s bottled up emotionally, and also has a fraught relationship with his influencer son Anthony (Harry Trevaldwyn). O’Neill is terrific as a woman up for fun but too self-assured to play nursemaid to inadequate men.
Friday 21 March, 11.15pm, BBC Two
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