Scenes from a Marriage — Showmax
Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain shine in this difficult but intelligent examination of modern marriage. It’s adapted by Israeli creator Hagai Levi from the 1973 Swedish television series directed by the legendary Ingmar Bergman. Overall it’s a talk-heavy, emotionally draining two-hander that explores the devastating consequences of an infidelity on the marriage of an ordinary middle-class couple. Isaac and Chastain throw themselves wholeheartedly into the meaty material and manage to offer complex and compassionate portraits that keep you coming back in spite of the emotional exhaustion that’s an inevitable side-effect of this provocative, often uncomfortable piece of voyeurism.
The Power of the Dog — Netflix
Jane Campion breaks her 12-year feature film hiatus with this dark, brooding psychodrama set in the 1920s against the spectacular backdrop of the New Zealand landscape (here standing in for Montana). When the relationship between two wealthy rancher brothers, George (Jesse Plemons) and Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), is threatened by the arrival of George’s new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her effete, head-in-the-clouds son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), things look poised for a terrifying showdown. Instead what we get is a quiet, powerful meditation on desire and loss that never quite goes where you say it will.
Crime of the Century — Showmax
Alex Gibney’s extensive two-part documentary examines the shameful behaviour of big pharma giants Purdue and Insys Therapeutics. Purdue, run by the now notorious Sackler family, aggressively pushed their dangerously addictive drug OxyContin on the unsuspecting US public through a campaign that lured the medical fraternity into complicity for creating the worst drug epidemic in history. Insys bribed doctors to oversubscribe their equally addictive drug Fentanyl with similarly disastrous results. Gibney patiently dissects the complexities of the story and introduces us to a host of characters who were involved in either drug pushing, drug dispensing, drug-using or drug enforcement. He paints a sordid picture of how corporate greed ran amok and the tragic consequences for millions of ordinary people who just wanted to alleviate their pain.
The Whole Truth — Netflix
This is a distinctively Asian cinematic twist on the haunted house horror genre from Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng. When siblings Pim and Putt’s mother is hospitalised, the children discover that they have a set of grandparents they never knew and, what’s worse and far more terrifying, that a horrific truth is hidden in a hole in the wall of their grandparents’ house which is about to unleash demonic mayhem.
Hellbound — Netflix
Playing on the appetite for South Korean social issue fantasy created by Squid Game, creator Sung-ho Yeon’s crazy but imaginative fable explores the limits of faith and the value of collaboration. When monsters from the depths of Hades come up to earth to attack sinners they have singled out for eternal punishment in the fires below, those sinners unlucky enough to be sentenced must discover difficult truths about themselves and everything they’ve believed to stand any chance of survival.
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