Pick of the week
Wolfs
It’s not quite Ocean’s Fourteen, but the reunion of George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Jon Watts’s nimble caper offers up the same easy charm and easy-on-the-eye star quality. They play underworld fixers who are both called on when Amy Ryan’s New York district attorney ends up with a dead young man (Austin Abrams) on her hotel room floor. He’s not dead, actually, but he does have a bag full of drugs he’s due to drop off. Amid some choice bickering and oneupmanship, the duo join forces to tidy up the loose ends before dawn, while the skills Watts honed in his Spider-man trilogy are used well, particularly in a fun, frantic chase through the nighttime backstreets.
Out now, Apple TV+
***
Inside Out 2
The terrific 2015 animated comedy gets a worthy sequel. With puberty now hitting our human protagonist Riley, her original five dominant emotions – Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger and Amy Poehler’s upbeat Joy – just won’t cut it. Enter the likes of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri) and the hilariously French Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) to complicate the 13-year-old girl’s life, and Joy’s best-laid plans. It’s colourful business as usual despite a new director, Kelsey Mann, and rather too many new characters.
Out now, Disney+
***
Apartment 7A
A prequel to Rosemary’s Baby featuring a minor character from that satanic classic probably wasn’t on anyone’s wish list. But directed by Natalie Erika James, creator of the superb horror Relic, and starring the estimable Julia Garner, there is a lot to like. Garner plays Terry, an aspiring dancer gifted a large flat in a New York apartment block by creepy old couple Minnie (Dianne Wiest) and Roman (Kevin McNally). But they have plans for her … With post-MeToo themes of gaslighting and coercive control to the fore, it’s a retread that finds fresh angles on familiar scares.
Out now, Paramount+
***
Nostalgia
That nostalgia is a double-edged sword becomes all too apparent to the protagonist of Mario Martone’s tender, angry 2022 drama. Felice (Pierfrancesco Favino) returns to Naples from Cairo after 40 years away to visit his ailing mother. The dream of returning to his roots tugs at him, despite the shameful reason for his departure as a teenager and the continued baleful presence of the mafia. The city itself – dirty, dangerous, beautifully labyrinthine – is a vital presence in the film, watching over Felice as he settles into a place he thinks he knows but, fatefully, doesn’t.
Saturday 28 September, 10pm, BBC Four
***
The Persian Version
Maryam Keshavarz’s drama begins as the comic tale of a metrosexual Iranian American woman rebelling against her traditional mother but expands into a rich, resonant saga of love, compromise and resolve. Layla Mohammadi is Leila, who has always butted heads with her demanding mother Shireen (Niousha Noor). But flashbacks to Leila’s childhood, the family’s early days in the US and her parents’ youth back in Iran add depth to Shireen’s actions.
Sunday 29 September, 10.10am, 6.05pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino’s love-triangle drama set on and around the tennis court teases and thrills (the game itself has rarely been filmed so creatively) but never quite reaches match point. Zendaya plays the woman in the middle, Tashi, a former player who coaches her husband Art (Mike Faist) to grand slam success. Art’s former best mate Patrick (Josh O’Connor, the most convincing of the three) is more talented but less focused. A challenger tournament match-up provides all three with the chance to replay old entanglements and resolve long-held animosities in a bold, brassy yarn.
Friday 27 September, Prime Video
***
The Color Purple
A film of the stage musical of the book – Alice Walker’s novel has come a long way but remains a landmark in African American fiction about the early 20th century. In Blitz Bazawule’s new iteration, Fantasia Barrino puts in the hard yards as Georgia girl Celie, who suffers sexual abuse by her father that results in two children, then is married off to a man who cheats on her. Taraji P Henson and Danielle Brooks have more fire in their bellies – and the showstopping numbers – as friends who try to sustain her.
Friday 27 September, 11.30am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
