weekend watchlist: before she invented Anna, she was the assistant
plus a couple of riveting true stories, and a fictional one we must hope never comes true
Don’t spend hours scrolling the menus at Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other movie services. I point you to the best new films and hidden gems to stream.
Movies included here may be available on services other than those mentioned, and in other regions, too. JustWatch and Reelgood are great for finding which films are on what streamers; you can customize each site so that it shows you only those services you have access to.
When you rent or purchase a film through the Amazon and Apple links here, I get a small affiliate fee that helps support my work. Please use them if you can! (Affiliate fees do not increase your cost.)
both sides of the pond
If you’re enjoying docudrama series Inventing Anna on Netflix (and you should be: it has its problems but it’s riveting nevertheless), then don’t miss Anna star Julia Garner’s previous outing in the quietly brutal The Assistant. Garner and writer-director Kitty Green give us a day in the working life of Jane, who has a decidedly unglamorous job at a prestigious boutique film production company in New York. Harvey Weinstein and the cesspit corporate environment he fostered is the clear inspiration here, and as we witness the dull drudgery of Jane’s office chores, we know what misdeeds and crimes she is unwittingly facilitating. And then she begins to get a clue…
This is a blistering subdued horror story of everyday life for women that could be happening in any workplace in any industry. So many women will instantly recognize the truth of how abuse and discrimination get swept away and hidden, why no one stops it even though everyone knows about it, and what happens when women speak up about it.
Initially released in early 2020, this was one of the first movies to get scuppered by the pandemic. It’s well worth catching up with. (Read my review.)
US: streaming on Hulu; available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
UK: available for purchase only (but it’s as cheap as a rental!) on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
US
new on demand
Norwegian eco-disaster flick The Burning Sea was released only a couple of weeks ago, but recent geopolitical events — the alarming new IPCC report on global warming; the looming cutoff for the West of oil and gas from Russia — make its warning about our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels even more urgent than it already was. Because when geological calamity here threatens to shut down all oil production in the North Sea, that’s only the beginning of the catastrophe. Discover new realms of planetary existential nightmare! I cannot recall the last time a movie’s ending has haunted me this much. (Read my review.)
available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
Hulu hidden gem
Once again, a female filmmaker brings such a fresh perspective to a topic that has been dealt with extensively by male filmmakers that it feels like the subject has barely been broached before. Writer-director Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, her take on PTSD in military veterans, gives us a damaged ex-soldier (beautifully portrayed by Ben Foster) who self-medicates with extreme isolation. But he also inflicts this on his teenaged daughter (Thomasin McKenzie, recently seen in Last Night in Soho), and she is beginning to feel the strain of it. This may be the gentlest exploration of the damage that toxic masculinity — in this case, a withdrawal from most human contact and interaction — does to men, and to those they love.
streaming on Hulu; also available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
UK
newly free on Prime
Jessica Chastain is always a joy to watch onscreen. Oscar voters think so, too: they just nominated her for Best Actress for her performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I think she’s even better in 2017’s bold, tough, and hugely entertaining Molly’s Game. This is the true story of a woman who ran high-stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York that were favored by celebrity actors, rock stars, tech billionaires, finance dudebros, and other rich assholes with money to burn… and how she played a man’s game — not poker, but their entitled masters-of-the-universe crap — with audacity and ambition but on her own terms, and by her own rules. Chastain is absolutely badass here. (Read my review.)
streaming free for Prime members; also streaming on Netflix; available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
new on Netflix
It’s a sad and shocking true story that the 2018 documentary Three Identical Strangers tells. Decades ago, at age 19, three men who’d been adopted as babies discovered that they were brothers — identical triplets, in fact — who had been separated at birth. How this happened, and why, and the long-term impact this had on the brothers is examined in a tragedy that is, alas, not unique, and one that has much to say about human nature and how we nurture our children.
streaming on Netflix; also available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
I have exciting news to share: You can now read Flick Filosopher in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never get cut off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
find lots more movies to stream at Flick Filosopher
follow me…
Twitter | Letterboxd | Rotten Tomatoes | Pinterest