Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight — Rent or buy from Apple TV+
SA-born actress Embeth Davidtz steps behind the camera for this adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s acclaimed memoir of life on a farm in the dying days of Rhodesia before the coming of independence and the rebirth of the country as Zimbabwe in 1980.
Starring the talented young newcomer Lexi Venter as Bobo Fuller, Davidtz as her eccentric mother, Nicola, Rob van Vuuren and Zikhona Bali, it’s a refreshingly honest examination of the complex ties to land and ideas of home in a population facing the uncertainties of the oncoming dismantling of a colonial world on a continent embroiled in the broader geopolitical machinations of the late Cold War period.
Venter is the audience’s guide and Bobo’s eight-year-old eyes offer a vision of a swiftly disappearing “when we” world that’s complicated, heartbreaking and also quietly amusing in a film that manages the rare feat of elevating its source material.
Down Cemetery Road — Apple TV+
Emma Thompson shines in this adaptation of an early standalone novel by Slow Horses creator Mick Herron as sharp-tongued London private investigator Zoë Boehm. She is drawn into the investigation of what has happened to a young girl after her husband is approached for help by a curious academic and neighbour of the child, Sarah Tucker (Ruth Wilson). The odd couple soon find that their questions are placing them in the sights of a murky government conspiracy run by people who won’t let troublemakers get in their way.
Hedda — Prime Video
Tessa Thompson stars in director Nia DaCosta’s lush modern reimagining of the seminal 1891 play by Henrik Ibsen about a restless woman caught between the memories of a past love and the suffocation of her present existence. Over the course of one tumultuous and eventful night, Hedda must make a decision that could drastically alter the course of her life and those around her forever.
The White House Effect — Netflix
Directors Bonni Cohen and Pedro Kohn offer a revealing overview of how a political decision on climate change within the George HW Bush administration satisfied the demands of the mighty American energy industry. Legislators chose to ignore scientific information about the devastating effects of climate change that had been known since the 1970s.
IT: Welcome to Derry — Showmax
The Argentinian siblings Andy and Barbara Muschietti, whose work on the recent two films inspired by Stephen King’s horror classic It has reintroduced the demonic Pennywise to a new generation of fans, turn their attention to answering some of the questions that were left open-ended in the book for this 1960s-set prequel origins story starring Jovan Adepo, James Renmar and Bill Skarsgård.
