Listen: The clocks have gone back. The nights are closing in. It’s getting colder, and your electricity bills haven’t gone up nearly as much as your gas. What else are you gonna do but huddle together, with your friends and loved ones, around the warming glow of the television set/laptop screen/more unconventional viewing set-up? And what, pray tell, are you going to watch? Well, that’s where What’s Worth Watching comes in — your monthly fix of lesser-seen gems available on all your most popular streaming outlets, bar the ones Rupert Murdoch has a minority share in.
Recommendation-round up
His House (2020, Remi Weekes) 93 minutes
Many mourned the recent loss of His House from Netflix’s catalogue…but said disappearance was only so the film could enjoy a second life, and reach a new audience, on iPlayer.1 It deserves each, too. Weekes’ film uneasily occupies the current trend for “elevated horror,” where the terrifying antagonist is clearly representative of a barely-concealed metaphor. In this case, Sudanese refugees Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) find the shabby house they’re eventually housed in to be haunted by ghosts — and memories — that have followed them across the sea. Standing apart from its small-c conservative peers, the politically-informed drama2 is as legit as the monsters, who creep through the walls with impressively nasty vitality.
A Sense of Loss (1972, Marcel Ophuls) 145 minutes
Documentarian Ophuls gives The Troubles the expanded view necessary to assess them properly, and soberly, in this epic piece of filmed journalism which was rejected by the BBC back in the day. Which, like, watch five minutes of it, and it’s not hard to see why. While he interviews both sides — emobided by Catholic activist Bernadette Devlin, and Protestant clergyman Ian Paisley — the filmmaker makes his authorial point of view evident, depicting the latter as more-or-less foaming from the mouth. Yet it’s the British interviewees who (naturally) come off worst. These sequences require little intervention from the director; he just gives them enough rope, and he effectively contextualises the conflict with historical and contemporary depictions of bloody violence.
Sword of Trust (2019, Lynn Shelton) 88 mins
A sweet oddity from the dearly-departed indie darling Shelton here. While cleaning out her recently-deceased grandfather’s estate, a woman and her missus discover an old Civil War sabre, along with a letter “proving” it was, in fact, the South who won. Sounds like a set up for a National Treasure-style history book-thumping blockbuster, no? In fact, it’s a gently odd and emotionally resonant dramedy starring lots of comedic actors you’ve definitely seen in stuff, even if you can’t place them (Marc Maron! Jillian Bell! Michaela Watkins! Jon Bass!), set around the pawn shop the titular sword is taken to and the colourful characters who frequent it. A wonderful little film.
Review of the month (sponsored by my electric blanket)
Mr Inbetween (2018-2021, Nash Edgerton) 21-32 mins per episode
What does a hitman do in his downtime? It’s apparently as unglamorous as anyone trying to make a living in the gig economy, whichever side of the law you work on. Creator/writer/star Scott Ryan’s Ray — shaven-headed and willowy-limbed, his prominent grin alternately charming and terrifying, depending on what the scene requires — has plenty on his plate besides killing. Between wetwork, he’s a bouncer at his employer’s Sydney strip club; he has a terminally ill brother to check in on; oh, and there’s his adorable daughter from his failed marriage, from whom he has to hide the nature of his day job.
Adapted and expanded from Ryan’s film The Magician, Mr Inbetween is all but the dictionary definition of a hidden gem. It’s fantastically entertaining, often laugh-out-loud (and blackly, ofc, given the subject matter) funny, as well as being a tense thriller and sustained character study of a man who can’t help but be affected by all the blood he has on his hands. It's also flown under the wire for three seasons, airing in the US on F/X and Disney+ over here.
Ryan’s performance, and Edgerton’s direction,4 balance its varying tones with ease. Sometimes even in the same scene: in an early episode, Ray takes his daughter for ice cream, only for some hoodlums to bump into them and cause her to drop her cone. He leaves her in the car while he goes to buy a replacement; in actuality, he jumps the gang in an alleyway, kicks the shit out of them, and returns to his sprog without comment.
That blend of the farcical and the genuinely disturbing reminded me a little of Joe R Landsdale’s Hap & Leonard novels,5 where larger-than-life situations and characters don’t preclude a serious meditation on, y’know, life and responsibility and stuff. All three seasons are available to stream and, perhaps the real kicker that’ll convince you to give it a try, in easy-to-swallow twenty minute episodes. All the intelligence and depth of prestige telly, within a sitcom timeframe. A pleasantly small-scale character piece/crime drama — the crook with a heart of gold, Aussie style.
Best of the rest
Belgica (2016, Felix Van Groeningen) The real draw of this fictionalised biopic of a Ghent music venue? The fact that Soulwax created all the music, skipping between genres as they embody over a dozen pretend bands across the decades. Tonnes of decadent fun! (Watch on Netflix)
Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000, Bong Joon-ho) The Parasite director’s debut is a little rough around the edges, but successfully sets the template for a career stylishly violent social satire (Watch on All4)
Three Salons at the Seaside (1994, Philippa Lowthorpe) Soon to be spoofed on the superior comedy series Documentary Now!, this forty minute fave is a time machine to a different world, chronicling the wit and wisdom of the patrons and proprietors of a trio of Blackpool hairdressers (Watch on YouTube)
P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang (1982, Michael Apted) The director of the 7 Up…series puts his close observation of the yoof to good use in this sweet short about a young cricket obsessive’s first crush; features a brilliant cameo by BBC Radio cricket commentator John Arlott narrating a pulse-pounding first kiss (Watch on All4)
That ought to keep you going through December, right? At which point we’ll all be busy watching Muppets Christmas Carol, and this newsletter will be surplus to requirements. In that spirit, I’ll be taking the next month off for me holidays, and will return to your inboxes in the New Year. See you on the other side!
The BBC partly funded the film, fact fans!
Embodied, surprisingly, by a low-key turn from Matt Smith as their possibly-well-meaning but hamstrung government housing agent
It’s worth pointing out, if you find yourself diving through the What’s Worth Watching archives, that films don’t often stick around on All4 — but they do, eventually, return, usually after they’ve re-aired on Film4!
Brother of Joel, part of the same Blue Tongue Films crew responsible for Animal Kingdom, Boy Erased, The Gift etc
A personal fave, itself adapted to a rather natty TV series previously available on Prime Video