What to Watch this Week: 13-20 Mar

Personal Shopper

Kristen Stewart is a personal shopper by day, medium by night, in this mysterious ghost story from Olivier Assayas. Our reviewer, Ben Nicholson, said the film hinges on “arguably a career-best turn from Kristen Stewart. It’s partly an exploration of grief, but equally interested in identity and isolation in the world of technological proliferation; think ghost in the machine, but also ghost in the social media platform and ghost in the information age.”

Read the full review | Read our interview with Olivier Assayas, who told us “Kristen Stewart has an unlimited range that needs to be challenged.”

Released Fri 17 Mar by Icon

Get Out

Sketch comedian Jordan Peele makes a hugely impressive directorial debut with this pin-sharp horror film in which white liberals are the bad guys. Get Out begins along the lines of a modern day Look Who’s Coming to Dinner as photographer Chris (brilliantly played by Daniel Kaluuya, no hint of his British accent slipping through), a young black man trying to quietly get by in “post-racial” America, goes on a weekend trip with his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) to visit her family for the first time.

The parents, Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford, seem pleasant enough (“I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could,” insists Whitford’s slightly over-friendly father figure), but events in Get Out lead less towards the Sidney Poitier culture clash comedy, and closer to the rage and satirical black humour of Brian Yuzna’s Society. The first great horror of 2017.

Released Fri 17 Mar by Universal

A Silent Voice

Director Naoko Yamada delivers anime capturing the existential anguish of high school life. Our reviewer, Ross McIndoe, said that “A Silent Voice does a great job of capturing the period in life when high school seems like the whole world and its dramas take on the dimensions of existential quests, every hurt feeling or frayed relationship an excruciating blow to the deepest level of your soul.” Read our full review.

Released Fri 17 Mar by National Amusements

The Salesman

Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi is one of the most consistently brilliant filmmakers working in cinema right now, so any new film by him is an event. But given The Salesman went on to pick up Best Foreign Film, in a win that flies in the face of Donald Trump’s unjust and inhumane travel ban, watching Farhadi’s film this week will be a great act of solidarity.

Because of Trump’s ban, Farhadi refused to travel to the Oscars to pick up his award in person, but a representative read out his acceptance speech. “I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight,’ Farhadi statement began. “My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the US. Dividing the world into the 'us' and 'our enemies' categories creates fear. A deceitful justification for aggression and war.”

Released Fri 17 Mar by Artificial Eye/Curzon

Iron Fist

Netflix’s trio of Marvel superhero dramas – Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage – have proven to be surprisingly sturdy, consistently more compelling than many of the films in the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe. The plan is that these heroes will at one point join forces to form The Defenders, a small screen equivalent to the big screen Avengers.

Last to join the Netflix throng of New York-based superheroes will be Iron Fist. The name suggests Tony Stark’s Iron-Man on a budget, but Wikipedia tells us he’s “a practitioner of martial arts and the wielder of a mystical force known as the Iron Fist, which allows him to summon and focus his chi.”

Streaming on Netflix from Fri 17 Mar