This “appropriately classy” film explores the life and career of the late Sidney Poitier, said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman. Directed by Reginald Hudlin, it features contributions from the likes of Denzel Washington and Spike Lee, as well as interviews with the great man himself (it was made just before his death earlier this year).
The latter provide “fascinating” insights into how Poitier’s upbringing in the Bahamas gave him “the fortitude to become not just the first black leading man in Hollywood history, but one of the film industry’s top box-office draws”.
Sidney is not only a reminder of Poitier’s immense charisma – palpable in films such as In the Heat of the Night and To Sir, with Love – but of his immense contribution to civil rights and the advancement of black actors, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. It’ll leave you “desperate to revisit at least half-a-dozen of his best films”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Painstakingly thorough” though this documentary is, said Jeannette Catsoulis in The New York Times, it is rather “a compendium of hero worship”. The film was produced by Poitier’s friend Oprah Winfrey, and it feels a bit “peak Oprah Winfrey”. Still, there are moments where it shrugs off its “hagiographic shackles”, such as when Poitier’s first wife discusses the breakdown of their marriage following his affair with Diahann Carroll.
These scenes “act like lemon juice squirted on heavy cream, brief reagents in a movie that, despite the meticulousness of its making, seems a peculiarly orthodox tribute to a revolutionary life”.
-
American universities are losing ground to their foreign counterpartsThe Explainer While Harvard is still near the top, other colleges have slipped
-
How to navigate dating apps to find ‘the one’The Week Recommends Put an end to endless swiping and make real romantic connections
-
Elon Musk’s pivot from Mars to the moonIn the Spotlight SpaceX shifts focus with IPO approaching
-
Catherine O'Hara: The madcap actress who sparkled on ‘SCTV’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek’Feature O'Hara cracked up audiences for more than 50 years
-
6 gorgeous homes in warm climesFeature Featuring a Spanish Revival in Tucson and Richard Neutra-designed modernist home in Los Angeles
-
Touring the vineyards of southern BoliviaThe Week Recommends Strongly reminiscent of Andalusia, these vineyards cut deep into the country’s southwest
-
Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – an ‘engrossing’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends All 126 images from the American photographer’s ‘influential’ photobook have come to the UK for the first time
-
American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
-
Properties of the week: houses near spectacular coastal walksThe Week Recommends Featuring homes in Cornwall, Devon and Northumberland
-
Melania: an ‘ice-cold’ documentaryTalking Point The film has played to largely empty cinemas, but it does have one fan
-
Nouvelle Vague: ‘a film of great passion’The Week Recommends Richard Linklater’s homage to the French New Wave
