It is time for a round up of new films seen on streaming services other than Netflix this month.
We start this month with Amazon Prime
How To Date Billy Walsh
This British romantic comedy revolves around two childhood friends: Amelia (Charithra Chandran) and Archie (Sebastian Croft). Archie has harboured a secret love for Amelia for as long as he can remember. But just as he gathers the courage to confess his feelings, Amelia falls for Billy Walsh (Tanner Buchanan), a new pupil at their school. Awash with clichés, this British film desperately wants to be an American high school comedy. Archie is impossibly rich and hard to relate to, and the jokes fall flat.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Defoe
Streaming services seem to be awash with football documentaries. Jermaine Defoe was a fairly talented player who had a decent career but did not seem to the obvious choice for a feature length film. True enough, the film is competently made and Defoe is an engaging presence but the story of his career is well enough known already.
We really do not need to see Harry Redknapp and Peter Crouch re-telling well worn anecdotes. However, his life away from the pitch, which is covered in the latter part of the film, is more interesting. He had to cope with a series of off field tragedies, and his close friendship with the late Bradley Lowery really seems to have helped him see a life beyond football.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Over on Sky Movies:
CrimeTime: Freefall
Crime series actress Hadley Warner (Lyndie Greenwood) retires to a small town where she encounters her first real case. Using her TV crime knowledge, she teams up with Detective Shawn Caden to try and solve the mystery. This is typical of a Hallmark mystery, and I assume more in a series will follow. It is a bit of a curate’s egg. Luke MacFarlane and Britanny Mitchell are good as Caden and CSI Careese Wright, there are some amusing lines and the mystery is decent apart from the far fetched resolution. Warner and her kids, though, are quite annoying at times, especially with her handful of catchphrases.
Rating: 6 out of 10
The Lies He Told
A generic title for what is another poorly shot Lifetime thriller. A mother decides to go back to work so hires a neighbour’s son to look after her kid. Just like deciding to watch this snoozefest, it was a mistake.
Rating: 2.5 out of 10
On My 5:
An Easter Bloom
To save her family flower farm, a young gardener Amanda (Aimee Teagarden) teams up with a veteran florist to compete in an annual Easter flower arranging competition. In the process, she meets the florist’s son Derrick (Ben Hollingsworth), a minister at the local church, who helps renew her beliefs. This is totally ludicrous. We are meant to believe that the first prize in a local flower arranging contest is $20000! Add in dollops of sentimentality and lots of religious chat and it is pretty unwatchable.
Rating: 1.5 out of 10
Blind Date Book Club
Erin Krakow stars as a Nantucket bookshop owner known for matching others who finds connection with a bestselling author when he visits her store. Krakow is always good but this is mediocre material.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Finally, films that can be rented on the usual services
Shoshana
Director Michael Winterbottom always makes interesting or thought provoking films. He has mostly focused on TV work and documentaries recently, but he returns here with a fictional story set in 1930s and 40s British Mandatory Palestine. British police officer Tom Wilkin (Douglas Booth) hunts for Zionist militant Avraham Stern (Aury Alby) whilst beginning a relationship with Shoshana Borochov (Irina Starshenbaum), the daughter of one of the founders of socialist Zionism.
I think this is Winterbottom’s best work since 2002’s 24 Hour Party People. He expertly weaves the romance between Tom and Shoshana with a quite detailed examination of the political situation whilst keeping the story really tense. Despite being set almost a century ago, it feels very timely bearing in mind the current atrocities in Gaza. It is refreshing to see it shown how all sides are equally to blame for the mess the area is in, but depressing to think that there is no realistic long term solution.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Memory
Jessica Chastain stars as Sylvia, a single mother, social worker, and recovering alcoholic, who reluctantly attends a high school reunion. At the event she meets Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), a man suffering from early onset dementia, and they strike up a friendship that becomes a romance. The main draw here are the performances. Chastain plays the damaged Sylvia really effectively and Sarsgaard is very convincing. The real star turns, though, are in the supporting roles.
Jessica Harper is chilling as Sylvia’s malevolent mother, Elsie Fisher shines again as Saul’s niece and the brilliant Merritt Wever is subtly fantastic as Sylvia’s sister. I liked the leisurely pace but did feel that the question of Saul’s consent should have been examined more.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10