Pick of the week
Scrapper
Charlotte Regan’s delightful debut feature takes a slice of social realism and gives it a topping of whimsical wit and touching optimism. Lola Campbell is a real find as 12-year-old Georgie, who secretly lives by herself on her east London estate after her mum’s death, stealing bikes with best mate Ali (Alin Uzun) to pay her way. She’s a resourceful, artful dodger so is mightily put out when her long-absent dad, Jason (Harris Dickinson), turns up to take care of her. The development of a parental bond is slow and painful: Jason struggles with the mysteries of fatherhood, while Georgie – despite her brave front – is still wrapped up in grief. With this charmer of a drama, Regan is one to watch.
Friday 27 February, 11pm, BBC Two
***
The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg mines his own history for his most personal film yet, a 1950s-set drama about family, growing up and the power of cinema. It follows Sammy Fabelman (played by Gabriel LaBelle as a teenager), who becomes obsessed with movie-making at a young age and persists with his celluloid dream as the family relocate from New Jersey to Arizona to California. Although there is nostalgia for the postwar age of opportunity, there is antisemitism, too – and domestic turbulence between his very different parents (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano).
Saturday 21 February, 9.15pm, Channel 4
***
Breathless
For those in need of an education after watching Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague – his new film about the making of Breathless (AKA A Bout de Souffle) – here’s Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic to help you out. It encapsulates the rule-breaking, improvisational spirit of the French New Wave – all jump-cuts, handheld camerawork and blithe indifference to typical plotlines – as Jean-Paul Belmondo’s impulsive, on-the-run criminal Michel woos Jean Seberg’s American student Patricia in a vividly depicted Paris.
Sunday 22 February, 12.35am, Talking Pictures TV
***
Paul McCartney: Man on the Run
Another day, another Beatles film. But Morgan Neville’s documentary is a fascinating time capsule, covering the period from 1969 – when the Fab Four split – to 1980 – when John Lennon was murdered. Voiceover interviews with McCartney, his family and fellow performers, plus home movies and private photos, provide an intimate look at an effortlessly creative if only intermittently brilliant musician trying to find his way as a solo artist. And despite recreating the band format (rather profitably) in Wings, it’s clear he was really just playing at being equal.
Friday 27 February, Prime Video
***
In the Blink of an Eye
There are major 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes to Andrew Stanton’s new live-action sci-fi adventure, though Darren Aronofsky’s epic, muddled The Fountain also springs to mind. The WALL.E creator’s ambitious film about life, death and humanity crosscuts between three timelines: a Neanderthal family; a present-day love story between Rashida Jones’s anthropologist and a fellow student (Daveed Diggs); and a 25th-century scientist (Kate McKinnon) on a spaceship en route to colonise a new planet.
Friday 27 February, Disney+
***
Dead of Winter
If you’ve a yearning to see Emma Thompson packing heat, then this is the film for you. Brian Kirk’s thriller is very much Fargo-adjacent in its wintry Minnesota location, grimly comic blood-letting and persistent use of “Oh heck” as a curse word. Thompson plays tackle shop owner and recent widow Barb. Her ice-fishing trip at a remote lake is interrupted when she finds a young woman (Laurel Marsden) being held captive by a gun-toting couple (Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca). It’s tightly plotted and tense, as Thompson’s very capable heroine exploits the chilly climate to help her rescue attempt.
Friday 27 February, Paramount+
***
Jurassic World: Rebirth
There are no characters from previous iterations, but Gareth Edwards’s efficient sort-of reboot does get a script by the writer of Jurassic Park, David Koepp. And there’s a definite return to focusing on the wonder of the dinosaurs, as mercenaries Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, palaeontologist Jonathan Bailey and their big pharma paymaster Rupert Friend head to a forbidden isle to sample its genetically mutated beasties. The cute quota is supplied by a family shipwrecked on a sailing trip. Cue the running and screaming …
Friday, 7.10am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
