5 things to watch this weekend – 19 to 21 August

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide, including BFI Southbank

Even if, like me, you’re old enough to remember the mid-90s news reports around Brandon Lee, a 16-year-old pupil in Glasgow who turned out to be not quite the boy his classmates thought he was, there’s still plenty to this story that’ll take you by surprise. Director Jono McLeod expertly teases out the various twists and turns, structuring his true-life documentary with a mix of audio interviews lip-synched by Alan Cumming (Brandon refuses to appear on camera), witty animations and archive footage. There’s also some often amusing, occasionally disturbing and always intriguing interviews with old school friends who, even after all these years, still don’t quite understand what happened at Bearsden Academy and why.

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide and online on BFI Player

If you thought Julie in Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021) had a chaotic approach to her lovelife and career, wait until you meet Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier). A genuine force of nature, living constantly in the moment and not worrying about the destruction she leaves behind, Anaïs is a self-obsessed postgraduate student whose inability to find love is challenged when she meets successful writer Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi). She soon begins a slow, determined seduction campaign. Given the potential for all this to veer into ‘manic pixie dream girl’ territory, it’s a credit to Demoustier’s performance that she is often deeply unsympathetic yet remains a fascinating character. Her unruly contradictions keep us guessing until the end.

Where’s it on? Mubi, from Sunday

Having recently released Mia Hansen-Løve’s wonderful Fårö-set tale of a filmmaking couple on creative retreat in Bergman Island (2021), Mubi begin a small season of the director’s films with 2009’s The Father of My Children. Also set in the world of film – this time centring on Grégoire Canvel, a Parisian producer struggling under severe financial pressures – Hansen-Løve’s second feature is a film of two distinct halves. Saying too much risks spoiling things but it’s a beautifully restrained, emotionally intelligent film about family, tragedy and the father-child relationship. Its great strength is that it is equally adept at depicting both mid-life and adolescent views, and having compassion for both.

Where’s it on? Blu-ray

Released in the UK on Criterion Collection Blu-ray, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic sees an elderly pensioner, Umberto Domenico Ferrari, struggling to make ends meet for both himself and devoted dog Flike in an economically ravaged postwar Italy. De Sica – aided in no small part by an Oscar-nominated script from Cesare Zavattini – mostly avoids the obvious pitfalls of sentimentality. He instead creates a film that reveals itself through subtle, affecting detail, through the unstrained performances of a mostly non-professional cast (Umberto D. is played by Carlo Battisti, a professor of linguistic science), and through undramatic everyday scenes lingered on by G.R. Aldo’s camera. It impressed Martin Scorsese so much he included it on his list of ‘39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker’.

Where’s it on? BBC Two, Sunday, 1:50pm

The Searchers remains one of the most influential films ever made (number seven on Sight and Sound’s 2012 poll of 100 greatest films), yet is still the subject of great debate. The story of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), a Civil War veteran tracking the Comanches who kidnapped his niece and murdered her family, Ford’s epic VistaVision western sees an American frontier hero driven to the brink through his own hatred, vengeance and unashamed racism. However, this bitter, dogged man also achieves some form of morally grey redemption too. The strength of Ford’s film is its complexity and, perhaps, its flaws – there are no easy answers. The justly famous opening and closing shots framing Ethan in a doorway contain a richness and poignancy that most filmmakers only dream of.