This article was originally published on The Guardian.
TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Forever
Netflix; full series available now
Summed up in a sentence: An adorable TV take on Judy Blume’s banned teen sex classic.
What our reviewer said: “As a teen drama, it works because, Heartstopper-style, its teenagers actually look and behave like teenagers. It’s a romantic melodrama, so their young love is at the centre of this show’s world, but to its credit for an older viewer, it comes across as knowing and self-aware too.” Rebecca Nicholson
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Further reading: Judy Blume forever: the writer who dares to tell girls the plain truth
Pick of the rest
Malpractice, season two
ITVX; full series available now
Summed up in a sentence: The relentlessly tense drama returns with another doctor receiving a probe by the Medical Investigations Unit.
What our reviewer said: “The new series promises to be as addictive and unsettling as the last, with another good cast and its doctor creator Grace Ofori-Attah still with plenty of material. Malpractice can surely run and run – which is great news for viewers, if less so for doctors and their patients out in the real world.” Lucy Mangan
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Untold: Shooting Guards
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence: Netflix’s sport documentary strand examines two basketball players’ struggle to cope with success.
What our reviewer said: “Over the years the reliable US documentary strand Untold has found numerous variations on the sad old story of the young adult who gets to the big leagues then throws it all away, and it’s turned up a devastating one in Shooting Guards” Jack Seale
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Long Way Home
Apple TV+; new episodes Fridays
Summed up in a sentence: Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are back for another epic motorbike travelogue, this time taking in the Arctic circle, the Baltic states and western Europe.
What our reviewer said: “It may not entertain viewers less invested in McGregor and Boorman’s friendship, or vintage motorcycles, or relentless rain. But the footage of them riding eventually becomes mesmerising, in a gentle, slow-TV kind of way, and while it is steady, it is also perfectly pleasant.” Rebecca Nicholson
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You may have missed …
The Settlers
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence: Louis Theroux revisits the West Bank settlers he first encountered in 2011 documentary The Ultra Zionists, in what might be his most confrontational film yet.
What our reviewer said: “I’ve been watching Theroux’s films for more than three decades, since his days on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, and watching him be this forthright feels like a true watershed moment in his career. This level of stridently editorialising just hasn’t been in his toolbox until now. It suits him.” Stuart Heritage
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Further reading: Palestinian activist says home raided ‘in revenge’ for appearing in Louis Theroux documentary
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Ocean with David Attenborough
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence: Visually stunning nature documentary protesting against the ruination of the seas.
What our reviewer said: “He shows us an amazing vista of diversity and life, an extraordinary undulating landscape, a giant second planet of whose existence humanity has long been unaware but now seems in danger of damaging or even destroying.” Peter Bradshaw
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Further reading: 99 ways David Attenborough has inspired us, by Barack Obama, Billie Eilish, Morgan Freeman and more
Pick of the rest
Motel Destino
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence: A young man on the run from a mob boss lands an unlikely job in a love motel and starts an affair with the manager’s wife.
What our reviewer said: “This film is terrifically acted by its central trio: three intensely and unselfconsciously physical performances in which their bodies are frequently on show, sensual but fragile.” Peter Bradshaw
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The Surfer
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence: Barmy Australian thriller about would-be wave-chaser Nicolas Cage tangling with local bullies.
What our reviewer said: “With a pleasing, no-frills intensity, The Surfer feels resolutely old-school. It’s a low-budget, hard-hitting comic bruiser of a picture: a midlife-crisis movie dressed up as a 1970s exploitation flick.” Xan Brooks
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Further reading: Nicolas Cage: ‘I don’t think a day goes by where I’m not mistaken for Nick Cave’
Now streaming
A Real Pain
Disney+
Summed up in a sentence: Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and stars in a masterpiece of a Holocaust tour comedy, which features a standout performance from Kieran Culkin.
What our reviewer said: “It is a road movie which is partly about the Holocaust and about America’s third-generation attempt at coming to terms with it, at confronting what their parents and grandparents found too painfully recent to revisit, or necessary to forget in order to survive. And partly it’s about family, male friendship and growing older.” Peter Bradshaw
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Further reading: ‘A collective sigh of relief’: how Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain went down in Poland
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Dream State by Eric Puchner
Reviewed by Sarah Crown
Summed up in a sentence: A love triangle plays out over decades in this deliciously immersive American saga.
What our reviewer said: “Puchner seduces us with a familiar narrative structure, only to undermine that structure, to force it to tell a tale of profound and fatal insecurity. But he tells his tale with such warmth and humour, that it’s not until you set the book down that you can appreciate the breadth and brilliance of what he’s done.”
Read the full review
Pick of the rest
Gunk by Saba Sams
Review by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Summed up in a sentence: A spiky tale of unexpected motherhood and chosen family from the author of Send Nudes.
What our reviewer said: “Sams is a skilled writer, sometimes a sublime one. The way she relates labour, birth and newborns is a mark of her talent and will make you forgive her occasional lapse into cliche.”
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Further reading: Writer Saba Sams: ‘I wanted it to be sexy and really messy’
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
Review by John Mullan
Summed up in a sentence: The definitive story of America’s most famous writer, from the author of Hamilton.
What our reviewer said: “Chernow makes out of a vast archive this admirably animated, readable account of one of the modern world’s first literary celebrities.”
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The Names by Florence Knapp
Review by Clare Clark
Summed up in a sentence: A high-concept sliding doors debut in which three different names given to a baby boy send him down three very different paths.
What our reviewer said: “This compelling and original debut asks at least as many questions as it answers. In the end, despite the neatness of its premise, it is not so much about the impact of our names but about the implications of our decisions.”
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Further reading: Love Groundhog Day and Russian Doll? These are the novels for you
You may have missed …
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Review by Steven Poole
Summed up in a sentence: A whistleblower’s no-holds barred account of Facebook.
What our reviewer said: “Mark Zuckerberg turns out to be a giant man-baby suffering from a severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby people overestimate their own cognitive abilities”
Read the full review
Further reading: Meta puts stop on promotion of tell-all book by former employee
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
PinkPantheress: Fancy That
Out now
Summed up in a sentence: Back after her TikTok-powered burst to initial fame, the singer-songwriter-producer is still making pithy pop – in longer form this time.
What our reviewer said: “There’s something infectious and gleeful about the way she stitches together her disparate influences, but her real skill lies in her ability to imprint her own identity on the results.” Alexis Petridis
Read the full review
Further reading: PinkPantheress: ‘I don’t think I’m very brandable. I dress weird. I’m shy’
Pick of the rest
Lido Pimienta: La Belleza
Out now
Summed up in a sentence: Five years since her Grammy-nominated breakthrough record Miss Colombia, the singer and producer takes a radical shift in direction.
What our reviewer said: “La Belleza (The Beauty) is a nine-track orchestral suite touching on everything from Gregorian chant to strings-laden love songs and dembow rhythms. The result is a moving work of remarkable depth.” Ammar Kalia
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Billy Woods: Golliwog
Out now
Summed up in a sentence: The underground New York rapper, celebrated for his leftfield linguistic invention, delivers one of his heaviest albums to date.
What our reviewer said: “Through samples, guest verses and his own lyrics, Woods unearths innumerable images of inhumanity: from stories of CIA torture methods to “12 billion USD hovering over the Gaza strip”. Golliwog is dominated by inherited trauma and state-sanctioned terror, and Woods assesses it all with horrible clarity.” Shaad D’Souza
Read the full review
Further reading: Attenborough, weed and ‘American apartheid’: the awesome mind of rapper Billy Woods
Brahms: Complete Symphonies
Out now
Summed up in a sentence: John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in these live recordings.
What our reviewer said: “There’s a litheness to the approach, a refusal to get distracted by subsidiary detail from the essential symphonic argument, and a sense of always keeping the structure taut and purposeful.” Andrew Clements
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You may have missed …
Sherelle: With a Vengeance
Out now
Summed up in a sentence: The UK dance producer is devoted to tracks at the high end of the bpm scale, spanning footwork, jungle and techno
What our reviewer said: “With her socially conscious projects that spread access and opportunity, Sherelle is building the future she’d like to see. Her music is charged with the same sense of determination.” Ben Beaumont-Thomas
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