Something to watch tonight: Monday 8 January

Jules (Turtletaub, 2023)

A few more of my cinema favour­ites have made it to home enter­tain­ment plat­forms over the last few weeks.

One that might eas­ily slip under the radar is the delight­ful alien-visit com­edy Jules which fea­tures lovely per­form­ances all round but espe­cially from Ben Kingsley:

If any oth­er act­or turned in a per­form­ance like Ben Kingsley does as Milton in Jules we would be talk­ing about awards con­ten­tion but, for some reas­on, we are so used to his sheer reli­ab­il­ity we risk tak­ing him for granted.

Milton is a seni­or in a small Pennsylvania town, liv­ing alone, occa­sion­ally see­ing one child (Zoe Winters from Succession) and estranged from the oth­er, his memory is slip­ping occa­sion­ally and the dis­trac­tion of a fly­ing sau­cer crash­ing in his back­yard and an ali­en on his couch are prov­ing to be extra unwel­come distractions.

Neighbours Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) and Joyce (very funny Jane Curtin) dis­cov­er his secret and try and help him keep it.

79-year-old Kingsley is fant­ast­ic and the film is full of lovely moments and rarely goes in quite the dir­ec­tion you think it will. Count your cats when you get home.

Where to watch Jules

Aotearoa: Digital rent­al from AroVision, Apple or Neon

Australia: Digital rent­al from Apple, Amazon or Telstra

USA: Streaming on Fubo, PAramount+ or Showtime

UK: Digital rent­al from Apple, Amazon, Sky, Rakuten or Microsoft