What to Watch This Winter
By Sue Careless
HOPEFULLY this winter we’ll not be as housebound as last year, but streaming services and even YouTube can offer us some fine fare to feast on when we are shut indoors. Here are some personal favourites that are all rated either General, PG13 or TV14. If you lack a particular streaming service, there’s a good chance that many of the older films and television programs are available in your public library. (The date listed for a series refers to its first season.)
Redemption is a theme rarely portrayed in movies today but “redemption or healing through nature” is something we do see. In two films, Penguin Bloom (2021) on Netflix and This Beautiful Fantastic (2016) on Prime Video, birds and gardens bring healing to broken spirits. We still long for the first perfect garden, even if we have forgotten the Gardener.
In Enchanted April (1992) four very different women decide to escape the miserable British damp and rent a small Italian castle. This flawless adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel is a wonderful story of redemption. Rent from Amazon or check your public library. Well worth the search.
The Durrell family also want to flee wet England and chose Corfu. Two versions are equally delightful: My Family and Other Animals, the 2005 film with Imelda Staunton on Britbox, or the more recent series The Durrells in Corfu (2016) on Prime. Both are based on naturalist Gerald Durrell’s amusing memoirs of his childhood. Comedy abounds.
If you want another series with eccentric folk and animals, you can’t go wrong with a new serial adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small (2020) on Prime, inspired by veterinarian James Herriot’s adventures in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s and 1940s.
For more idyllic English countryside, catch Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in the Cotswolds during and immediately after WWI. The 2015 version on YouTube is lovely and the narration pitch-perfect.
Can’t get enough of rural life? Then two Britbox series will charm you: Cranford (2007) and Lark Rise to Candleford (2008). Both are set in small English villages just as the Industrial Revolution looms on the horizon. There is plenty of light comedy and gentle drama.
If you want a darker look at capitalism and its effect on society in the nineteenth century then these three Britbox series are for you: The English Game (2020), a fine drama about far more than sport; Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (2004), which has romance as well as drama; and The Way We Live Now (2001). You have probably seen David Suchet portray Agatha Christie’s restrained Belgian detective Poirot. His powerful performance in The Way We Live Now will blow you away.
For fine period medical drama Britbox offers two series, both set in London’s poor East End. Bramwell (1995) centres on a pioneering female doctor while Casualty 1900s (2006) is based on real cases, characters and events taken from the London Hospital’s records.
Let’s move into the twentieth century with some classic mysteries. These two black and white films can be found on YouTube. Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) has some brief violence. Don’t bother with the new version on Amazon Prime. Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) is a true classic, but Netflix’s 2020 version is quite good.
YouTube also carries Dorothy Sayers’ clever murder mysteries Strong Poison, Have His Carcase & Gaudy Night, which were filmed in 1987 with actress Harriet Walter playing Harriet Vane, companion sleuth to Lord Peter Wimsey.
In the based-on-a-true-story film category, we have two Netflix dramas: The Dig (2021), about an archaeological dig troubled by class conflicts and Fisherman’s Friends (2019) set on the shores of Cornwall.
For stories set during World War II try The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) film on Netflix and the fine mystery series Foyle’s War (2002) on Acorn TV. Both have moments of brief violence.
Let’s finish with some coming-of-age stories. Greta Gerwig’s film Little Women (2019) on Prime is very good but I still prefer the 1994 movie with Susan Sarandon.
Netflix offers three modern coming-of-age films, all dramedies: The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) set in North Carolina; Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) set in New Zealand with some cartoonish violence; and About a Boy (2002), my favourite Hugh Grant film. Grant plays Will, a rich, irresponsible Londoner. Don’t be put off by his sleezy dating ploy. It backfires and forces Will to finally grow up in this modern story of redemption. TAP
