What’s on this weekend? From Midsommar to Macbeth

Midsommar (2019)

By The Week Staff

last updated 24 April 2020

The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.

TELEVISION: Stacey Dooley: Costa del Narcos

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“A new documentary, following Stacey Dooley as she investigates the Spanish drug trade, is set to be a gripping watch. Costa Del Narcos will see the journalist attempt to explore how southern Spain became the main gateway for drugs into Europe, with the region becoming one of the most popular routes for smuggling cocaine and hashish into the continent. She will explore the incredible lengths smugglers go to get their product into the country, including travelling in speedboats at up to 100mph in extreme weather conditions and crossing seas in the middle of the night. She'll even go on a patrol with the Spanish police's air force team to scan the strip of water between Morocco and Spain - a hot entry point for smuggling.”

“Midsommar is an outrageous black-comic carnival of agony, starring charismatic Florence Pugh in a comely robe and floral headdress. It features funny-tasting pies and chorally assisted ritual sex, with pagan celebrants gazing into the middle distance and warbling as solemnly as the young dudes in the Coca-Cola TV ad about teaching the world to sing. It’s all set in an eerily beautiful sunlit plain, bounded by forests and lakes… It’s a thoroughly enjoyable film, a crescendo of paranoid trippiness building to an uproarious grossout in its final moments - of which the poster image, incidentally, gives you no clue.”

“After revealing his latest crush, Kilmer shares a gnarly encounter from his convalescence at the home of none other than Cher, his former flame and lifelong friend, in the first chapter. As he recalls his own blood-soaked grin and laughter spurred by Cher’s fawning over an EMT, Kilmer shows great vulnerability and a knack for storytelling… Occasionally, Kilmer does show the same puckishness and bravado that made him stand out at “THE Juilliard School” (emphasis Kilmer’s), weaving in some truly impressive humble brags about his commitment to realistic portrayals of a gunslinger, fighter pilot, and the Lizard King himself.”

“Eccleston suggested in a recent interview that Macbeth is rooted in male insecurity about masculinity. That element is certainly present in his kinetic, gruff, brawny performance. Sporting a military buzzcut and jutting beard, he plays Macbeth as a man of action, a barely domesticated warrior plainly more comfortable in body armor than the ceremonial robes of power. With his pumped-up torso, Eccleston exudes more brute physicality than usual here, like a retired boxing champ eager to prove he can still crush any young challenger.”

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