Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
Fallen Leaves (MUBI, starting Jan. 19)
Delightfully and improbably, Aki Kaurismaki’s tiny drama Fallen Leaves has become the surprise sensation of the awards season. The latest of the Finnish director’s bone-dry comedies to focus on the working-class citizens of Helsinki, this short-and-sweet romance follows Ansa (Alma Poysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). She works at a supermarket, stocking shelves and keeping her head down, until she’s busted for taking home an expired bagel. He works in construction, never far from his flask. Their home lives are distressingly spare, and there doesn’t seem to be much possibility or even desire for change. But one night while enduring karaoke at Helsinki’s very worst (or possibly best?) bar, the two lock eyes – sizing each other up more than falling head over heels – and suddenly there’s the promise of a better tomorrow. This is a crisp autumn breeze of a movie, refreshing and invigorating even when it seems like things are falling apart. Read review.
Richard III (Stratfest@Home)
Not that you need yet another streamer to add to your monthly subscription fees, but those interested in something that Netflix and Co. cannot possibly hope to offer should check out the Stratford Festival’s nascent digital service, Stratfest@Home, which has just added a filmed version of 2022′s Richard III starring Colm Feore. Directed for the stage by Stratford’s artistic director Antoni Cimolino, and for film by Barry Avrich, the production gets about as close as anyone can hope for to capturing the live-wire energy of Stratford at its peak. For adventurous viewers, it costs $7.99 a month to gain access to the service (whose catalogue contains a true wealth of Canadian stage-to-screen treasures), or you can rent Richard III as a one-off for $4.99.
Reacher, Season 2 (Prime Video)
If you’re in the market for series in which big men do bad things to bad people – a rather burgeoning market, it seems – then the latest season of Reacher has you covered, and then some. Wiping away any memories of the unfortunately cast Tom Cruise-led Reacher films, Prime Video’s new stab at adapting author Lee Child’s megaseries finds the perfect mix of brawn and brain in the rather humungous Alan Ritchson, who plays the drifter-slash-do-gooder with the kind of charming intimidation that is magnetic.
Napoleon (on-demand, including Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon, Cineplex Store)
To my surprise, the reaction this past November to Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was rather divisive. True, those expecting a historically accurate portrait of the French madman were bound to be disappointed – I mean, Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t even attempt a French accent. But as a go-for-broke comic epic about the twin forces of narcissism and nationalism, you couldn’t ask for a more entertaining ride.
Scott, alongside his All the Money in the World screenwriter David Scarpa, makes one of the film’s best moves right off the top, abandoning a cradle-to-grave biopic in favour of narrowing the focus to Napoleon’s military history. When the film opens, the anti-hero (Phoenix) is a young Corsican lieutenant with an eye for climbing France’s social ladder, no matter if that means yanking the steps up once he’s ascended despite the fates of whoever else might be still holding on. Finding favour on the field as well as with such power-hungry figures as politician Paul Barras (Tahar Rahim), Napoleon steadily carves his path through the chaos of a country swept by revolution, eventually rising to emperor and setting off to play the nations of Europe against each other like so many pieces on a chess board, all while wooing the tempestuous Josephine (Vanessa Kirby).
While there’s reportedly a four-hour version set to stream at a later date once Napoleon becomes available to subscribers of Apple TV+ (the company that financed the production), I’ll be happy watching this 157-minute version at home till then. Read review.
So Much Tenderness (Crave)
Lina Rodriguez’s new Canadian drama opens with a sly wink and tight grip. Canadian indie film stars Kazik Radwanski and Deragh Campbell (who together made 2019′s Anne at 13,000 Ft.) are introduced as a couple preparing to smuggle a woman across the U.S.-Canada border. But after the two set out for the operation, Rodriguez swiftly and deftly switches gears. So Much Tenderness is not about the dangers of crossing over to a new country but looks at the uneasiness of having done so. The Americans are soon forgotten, and now the focus is on their so-called cargo, a mother named Aurora (Noelle Schonwald) who escaped Colombia for a better life. Rodriguez expertly balances competing emotions, with her film at once sweet and haunting, nerve-rattling and quite funny.