Film, TV & Book Reviews

When I first started watching Atypical on Netflix, it seemed like Sam was the star of the show, and in many ways the storyline does revolve around him – a teenager ...

By Simon Demetriou There are so many situations where jargon can be off-putting. Thankfully, thriller novels about military intelligence are not one of these. Indeed, you want your novelist to ...

Shooting a television series is a stressful job. In the TV and film world, there are countless moving parts that must come together to make everything work. If one person ...

It’s a normal day for real estate agent Sheila Hammond until she vomits out gallons of goo and a smallish red ball while showing a house to potential buyers ...

Xenobe Purvis’ timely and exquisite little debut manages to deftly carry off its titular pun: this is a novel about five sisters who, it is claimed, turn into dogs – a ...

With the release of the second season of The Last of Us in April, it is worth revisiting the show that raised video game adaptation standards forever. Set in a ...

By Philippa Tracy Jean Hanff Korelitz’s eighth novel The Latecomer is a social satire on privilege and family dynamics. It focuses on the Oppenheimers, a wealthy New York Jewish ...

Depending on family situation, everyone perceives September differently: if you don’t have kids, it’s just the month after summer. If you have kids then it’s Zihuatanejo, the ...

Hostage, the new Netflix series, delivers a tense political thriller with a deeply personal edge. The story centres on British prime minister Abigail Dalton (played by Suranne Jones), whose husband ...

If one can believe the OED – and I refuse to countenance a world where this is not a given – then the frequency with which the word ‘autofiction’ crops up in ...

What have I been doing these past weeks? Who wants to know? Did Johnny Salami put you up to this? Have you been talking to Jimmy the Icepick? What have ...

What happens when the last survivors of a climate-ravaged Earth are confined to a single, endlessly circling train? In Snowpiercer, the post-apocalyptic premise becomes a stage for a chilling social ...

I like books that are funny. I like books that treat flawed characters tenderly. I like books about parents and children. I like books about human absurdity and folly. I ...

Sorry, I am still bitter about Locke and Co. With such a long production cycle, changes are bound to happen. Directors get hired, then fired. Writers come and go. Crew ...

Greek TV is having its moment on Netflix. There are now plenty of Greek series on the global streaming platform, and after the success of Maestro and other shows such ...

By Philippa Tracy Hallie Rubenhold’s book The Five is the story of the ‘canonical five’ victims of Jack the Ripper: Mary Ann or ‘Polly’ Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, ...

The Covid-19 era was completely insane. For months, we were stuck at home, unable to go out, doing absolutely nothing except playing video games all day and watching movies nonstop. ...

Before his retirement party has properly ended, CIA operative Luke Brunner (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is dragged back into action for one last job that turns his world upside down, as the ...

There is a line midway through Vera, or Faith, when the novel’s eponymous protagonist reflects that her family situation has become ‘worse than the time Daddy had gotten into ...

Dark and comedic, Netflix’s Sirens delves into the complicated relationship of the DeWitt sisters. Masterfully created by Nicole Kassel and Quyen Tran, it’s captivating and unsettling. After Devon (...

In a recent review, I talked about how fictional secrets ought, if possible, to be kept rationally and meaningfully, but that often this isn’t the case. The ‘but’ you ...

And just like that, it was there. Right there. I opened my App Store and, right at the very top, there was the HBO Max app and a prompt asking ...

Few series open with quite such immediacy as To Navayio (The Shipwreck), which premiered a few days ago on Alpha Cyprus. The first images were striking, restless Aegean waters under ...

By Philippa Tracy Elizabeth Strout has written a number of best-selling literary novels, featuring complex and recurring characters in small-town America. These include Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize ...