This is a round up of new films seen at home this month on all services other than Netflix.
Starting as usual with Amazon Prime:
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
An unhappily single French bookseller and budding author, Agathe (Camille Rutherford) travels to England for the Jane Austen Residency writing retreat. It does not cure her writer’s block but she does meet Oliver (Charlie Anson). Despite Agathe being quite a feisty character, this is a pretty standard romantic drama with a very cliched view of England and its inhabitents.
Rating: 5 out of 10
John Candy: I Like Me
Directed by Colin Hanks, this documentary looks back at the life and career of the comic actor, using archival footage and interviews. This is a straightforward doc, full of famous people telling how great John Candy was. He does seem like a lovely guy and was talented but his filmography has only a few films of real note. The most interesting aspect was the cruelty of interviewers when talking to him about his weight.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Maintenance Required
Charlie (Madelaine Petsch) runs an all female mechanics shop. Her small business is under threat because of the nearby appearance of a big brand competitor. Meanwhile she starts chatting online with businessman Beau (Jacob Scipio) and wouldn’t you know it…do I really need to finish that sentence!? So this is The Shop Around the Corner/You Got Mail plot regurgitated once again, and it lacks the charm and star power that was present in both of those.
Rating: 4 out of 10
The Threesome
Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) has a crush on the irreverent Olivia (Zoey Deutch). To his amazement she suggests a threesome with an alluring stranger Jenny (Ruby Cruz). The encounter sparks a relationship between Connor and Olivia and their love grows quickly, but their happy romance is soon put at risk when Jenny reappears in their lives. Maybe it is my age, but I struggled to connect with everyone on screen, so that was a hurdle. Some of the tender, quiet moments are good though, but the big comic elements do not work and there are too many twists.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Mission Alarum
Secret agents Joe (Scott Eastwood) and Lara (Willa Fitzgerald) fall in love during a mission and decide to go rogue to get married. They manage to escape their respective agencies and establish a quiet life, but their peace is shattered when a plane crash near their cabin reveals a hard drive that several organisations want. Sylvester Stallone has torn himself away from his duties as Trump’s special ambassador to Hollywood to appear as an ex-colleague of Joe’s who may not be as friendly as he first seems to be. I am used to Eastwood and Stallone appearing in any old junk for cash but Fitzgerald is too good for this. Michael Polish’s leaden direction and muted tones, along with Alexander Vesha’s weak script all contribute to the boredom.
Rating: 2.5 out of 10
Riff Raff
Vincent Gauthier (Ed Harris), an ex-criminal living a quiet life with his wife Sandy (Gabrielle Union) and stepson DJ (Miles J. Harvey). While celebrating the Christmas holidays, they must contend with the unexpected arrival of Vincent’s ex-wife Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), their son Rocco (Lewis Pullman), and his pregnant girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini). With Bill Murray and Pete Davidson also in the cast, there is plenty of talent on screen. However, this is the worst kind of American indie filmmaking, a self indulgent mess of a movie. I hated pretty much everyone on screen as well as John Pollono’s boring script.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
Over on Sky, subscribers can see:
Wish You Were Here
Julia Stiles wrote and directed this drama about a woman, Charlotte (Isabelle Fuhrman) who has a whirlwind night of romance with a guy, Adam (Mena Massoud), only to find out he is terminally ill. I find it odd that all romantic dramas aimed at a young audience have to feature one of the couple dying. It feels like such a lazy way to induce tears in the audience, and, of course, Adam’s symptoms only occur when it suits the plot. Frankly, I expect better of Stiles.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Code 3
Randy (Rainn Wilson) is a paramedic who is so exhausted by the job that he is quitting. On his last shift with his partner Mike (Lil Rel Howery), his supervisor, Shanice (Yvette Nicole Brown) assigns him a student, Jessica (Aimee Carrero), for a ride along. I thought this had the promise to be taut and nerve shredding, but it was messily unfocused.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
The Stranger in My Home
Ali (Sophia Bush) meets a mysterious man, Tom (Chris Carmack) who claims to be the father of her teenage daughter, Katie (Amiah Miller). What begins as an unsettling encounter soon spirals into a nightmare of long-buried secrets, lies and obsession. This is the second adaptation of an Adele Parks novel this year. The Image of You was fairly average but Jeff Fisher’s thriller is awful. The performances are wooden and it feels like a cheap Lifetime movie, with the pointless and annoying overuse of split screen.
Rating: 2 out of 10
It Feeds
Cynthia (Ashley Greene) is a psychiatrist who has the power to see into her patients’ minds. After a girl named Riley (Shayelin Martin) comes to Cynthia and her daughter Jordan (Ellie O’Brien) and claims that a supernatural entity is feeding off her, Jordan is determined to help Riley. Director Chad Archibald manages to conjure up a creepy atmosphere at times, but his leaden writing, reliant on jump scares, is not good.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Grow
Young Charlie (Priya-Rose Brockwell) is sent to live on a Scottish farm with her Aunt Dinah (Golda Rosheuvel). She discovers an aptitude for gardening so she sets out to grow the world’s biggest pumpkin. There will be a younger audience who will find some amusement here but Brockwell comes across as too stage-schooly.
Rating: 4 out of 10
The following can be bought or rented on the usual services:
Unmoored
Maria (Mirja Turestedt) is a successful Swedish TV presenter whose life is turned upside down by shocking accusations made against her husband. To avoid the media attention, they head south on sabbatical. However, the strain on their marriage does not go away. There is a lot to like in Caroline Inhvarsson’s psychological thriller. There is a pleasingly chilly atmosphere, a great depiction of a bleak but beautiful Dartmoor, a tender burgeoning romance between Maria and neighbour Mark (Kris Hitchen) and a terrific performance by Turestedt. Writer Michele Marshall, who based her screenplay on Hakan Nesser’s book, cleverly and slowly reveals a terrible incident but I found the twist ending unconvincing.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
The Astronaut
Kate Mara stars as Sam Walker, an astronaut who is found alive in a ruptured capsule in the Atlantic Ocean. After she is placed under NASA surveillance, strange occurrences begin happening, leading everyone to fear something extra terrestrial followed her back to Earth. The first hour of Jess Varley’s sci fi/horror hybrid is quite intriguing. It is unclear if Sam is suffering from hallucinations or if there is really a physical threat out there and Mara’s performance is intense. It nosedives in the last act though, with a laughable explanation and an abrupt ending.
Rating: 5 out of 10
All the Devils Are Here
An impressive cast, including Sam Claflin, Eddie Marsan and Rory Kinnear, has been gathered for this thriller set in a remote Dartmoor cottage. Four thieves carry out a job and are told by their boss to hide out there with nothing to do but count the money and wait. The days pass and the tensions rise. Kinnear’s part is minor but he makes the most of it, Claflin relishes playing against type as a hard man but it is the peerless Marsan as the quiet but vicious leader of the group who really excels.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
On Apple TV+:
All of You
William Bridges’ romantic drama is set in the near future where you can take a test to find out if a prospective partner is your soul mate. Laura (Imogen Poots) takes such a test but is the partner she is matched with right for her, or is it her best friend since college, Simon (Brett Goldstein)? I think anyone could answer that question, which is one of the problems with this romantic weepie. The other being Goldstein’s stilted performance in a lifeless film that Poots cannot save.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Doing the rounds on Movies 24 is
Adventures in Love and Birding. A single mum, Celeste (Rachel Boston) agrees to be the partner of a bird enthusiast, John (Andrew W. Walker), for a ornithological competition but, due to a misunderstanding, she tells everyone she’s his new girlfriend instead of just his teammate. Despite an unoriginal premise and a niche interest, this romcom actually works, thanks mainly to both the main characters being likeable with good performances by the leads. The script is better than usual in Hallmark romances too until they try to add jeopardy by making Celeste behave unreasonably towards the end.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
Finally to My 5
Killer Fashion
Amy (Brianna Cohen), an overworked woman, is shocked when her boss assigns her as successor rather than her own daughter. But when the boss is found dead next morning, Amy is the prime suspect. This was called Dressed to Kill in America, but wisely the name has been changed to avoid comparison with the Brian de Palma classic or even the Basil Rathbone-Sherlock Holmes movie from 1946 as it pales in comparison to both of those. It was hard to get involved in the mystery when Amy is so unlikable.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Mystery Island: House Rules
This is the 4th in the series and the 3rd of the year. Despite the succession of murders at their events, the Mystery Island team are doing so well, they are looking to expand. But when they meet their Mystery Mountain counterparts for a friendly murder game…well, you can guess the rest! Writer John Christian Plummer is obviously aware that it is weird that so many murders happen on the island, with a reference at the start and with something that happens at the end. I think it is the best mystery of the series so far and Kezia Burrows takes the acting honours again.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
A Pie To Die For: A Hannah Swensen Mystery
Baker and amateur sleuth, Hannah Swenson (Alison Sweeney) investigates when her mother’s theatre rival is found dead. The Murder She Baked/Hannah Swensen mysteries used to be the best in the Hallmark stable. The plot is still decent enough but Sweeney is a bit old for the character now and Barbara Niven’s over acting is annoying.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
What Hides in Silence
Teacher Tiffany (Aubrey Reynolds) takes on a new student, Amy (Haley Baird Riemer) and starts dating her father, Craig (John Castle). But soon she finds that her life is in danger. This is better than most Lifetime movies, there is a surplus of suspects and an ending is not easy to guess.
Rating: 5 out of 10
The Baby My Husband Lied About
Any film with a title like that, surely has to be terrible. So, is this story about a woman who becomes pregnant after several rounds of treatments, only to find out that her husband isn’t the biological father of the baby that bad? In fact, it isn’t. Despite a patchy script, if is a reasonable little mystery.
Rating: 5 out of 10