is inspirational, leila fernandez it is inspirational, isn't it? i have three daughters, all three of them are playing tennis and they are under the age of ii and for them it isn't inspiration and it is something for them to aspire to be, notjust as tennis players but also as people and it is just a wonderful story and i think on the back of what we have all been through certainly sport suffered a lot through crazy times and we were playing tennis and went on the court, on the back of everything we have gone through, to have this story at the end of it all and hopefully things are looking much more positive ahead it is just, everybody has needed it and everybody has needed it and everybody seems so excited about it. changing of the old guard, i've heard. i know you are going to be sitting down at nine o'clock this evening. not long gone now. for now, thank you very much. thank you, thank you very much. thank you, thank you. as i said, nine o'clock and you can follow it on bbc radio 5 live but also we will be keeping a

close eye here on bbc news as well and plenty more of the build—up to that match will be featured in spots in a few minutes. now, though, time to sit down and enjoy the film review. the track featured on sports day in a few minutes. hello, and welcome to the film review on bbc news. look who's here! he's real, it's mark kermode really here in the studio, not an avatar! it is fabulous to be back in the studio with you, jane, how lovely to see you again. so, we have a packed show coming up. so, we've got reviews of the collini case, which is a german crime thriller. we have respect, which is the biopic of aretha franklin, withjennifer hudson. and we have herself, which is a new film by phyllida lloyd, which i think you and i have different opinions about. to be discussed. we start with the collini case. yes, so, german crime thriller, based on a book by ferdinand von

schirach, which i confess i have not read although it's apparently a very famous book. the story is a young lawyer is assigned to a case in which he has to defend a man, fabricio collini, played by the great franco nero, who is accused of murder. the case seems fairly hopeless, not least because shortly after the murder fabricio collini presented himself, covered in blood, and now refuses to speak in his own defence. here's a clip.

so it then transpires that the lawyer actually knew the victim. in fact the victim was something of a mentor to him, took him under his wing, almost fathered him. the question is why on earth would anybody want to kill this man, who was a respected industrialist and as far as the lawyer knows was very good person. the author of the book, his grandfather was a very high—ranking nazi who was tried at nuremberg. and one of the things the book is about is coming to terms with the past and the ghosts of your own past, and accepting the fact that people who seem like one thing may actually be something completely different. so a lot of the story is to do with confronting guilt. it's also a pretty good drama in terms of — it's a courtroom drama, now, i love a courtroom drama, i do understand courtroom dramas

are full of things that never happen in real courtrooms, like people producing witnesses out of nowhere that nobody�*s heard of, people presenting papers that ijust happen to have in my bag... i quite like a courtroom drama too, you see... yeah, i'm a suckerfor it. i keep expecting somebody to slam the table and say, "you can't handle the truth!" if you accept that the drama itself is contrived and it does have all those conventions, then i think it's very entertaining. but more importantly it is about something very serious. it is about that thing of looking back into the past, looking back into a country's guilty past and your own family's guilty past, and asking questions about whether people are the people that they seem to be. so it's doing quite a clever thing, which is, it's a very entertaining potboiler on one hand, but also it's about something far more substantial. as i said, i haven't read the book, but i very much enjoyed the film. it's called the collini case and it's in cinemas now. ok, now, respect. i really want this to be good because, aretha franklin —

what a figure, what a life story. an extraordinary life story. so the good news is, she's played byjennifer hudson, who is fantastic in the lead role. i mean, ithink everybody expected this. aretha franklin herself effectively appointed jennifer hudson. she had, you know, she was very controlling on the project right up until her death in 2018, and she said tojennifer hudson, "you're the right person to do this." so that's great, i mean, she can sing, she can act, she has charisma, she has presence, and it's a great performance. i think the problem is the film itself isn't quite as exceptional as either its central performance or, indeed, as aretha franklin. it's a very sort of tumultuous life story and the film wants to play things fairly safe. so there's domestic abuse, there is alcoholism, there's a lot of stuff that is quite dark and the film acknowledges it. what it doesn't really know then is what to do with it. the musical setpieces are fantastic — i mean really fantastic — and it goes from the 1950s in detroit up to 1972, and the recording of her

record—breaking gospel album, and actually because that's a very glorious place to finish. people will recently have seen amazing grace, the documentary about her doing that, which was delayed for so long. so i think it's worth seeing it forjennifer hudson's performance because she's terrific. i just wanted the film to be more exceptional, and an awful lot of the rock biopics have got the same beats, the same story points. a lot of this seems familiar. but she carries it shoulder high, and when she's on stage and doing it, she's really great. and it's notjust the voice, it's the gestures, it's the way she holds her head back, it's the way she half—closes her eyes. she's got the physical performance absolutely downpat, so that's great. the film itself however, not as good as her performance. yes, a mixed bag, jennifer hudson is very talented, isn't she? and herself — well, i'm fascinated to know what you made of it. ok, so i mentioned that i don't think respect knows what to do with its themes of domestic abuse. so in the case of herself, this is an irish drama played at sundance in 2020, before everything happened.

and it's co—written by clare dunne who stars as sandra, who is a mother who has an abusive partner. she needs to get away from the abusive partner with her children to find a house. she can't find a house and then she sees online and someone saying, look, it's possible to build a house for a fairly small amount of money. this sounds ridiculous but then a family friend says, well, i'll give you my back garden, effectively, to do it in, if you can make the house. here's a clip. a house? hm. our own house? hm. at the bottom of the garden? like a fairy house. the only thing is, girls — and this is really important, right? we can't tell anyone. not anyone at school, not nanny, granddad and especially, especially not daddy. why? i'm just going by what ado the builder said. he said that's the rules and you've seen him, right? you don't want to mess with him, do you? no. so we have to keep this to ourselves, yeah? our own special secret. like black widow?

sort of. what's that? oh, it's just a code word. it's better you don't know. yeah. so... no telling, 0k? hm. pinkie promise? both: one... ..two...three... ..pinkie promise! 0h, girls. oh, and that's a fantastic clip, i think, because that summarises so much and reminds us how brilliant the three of them are when they're on screen together. and you completely believe in them as a family. yes, yes. and, so, it's directed by phyllida lloyd, mamma mia, which was a huge smash hit, iron lady, which of course you know was oscar—feted. this feels like a smaller project. but here's the interesting thing. half the film is about the nightmare of domestic abuse, and half is about the dream of building your own home, which is, you know, almost a fairytale. in fact, at one point they actually do refer to it as a fairytale home.

and i think the thing that the drama does really well for me is that on the one hand it's got that stuff you get from something like witness, remember the barn building scene in witness? which everyone loves, of course everyone loves watching a home being built. and it uses that to tell a much darker story about the plight of a woman who is being failed by the system, who is looking everywhere for help and is not receiving it. and i think that what the drama manages to do is to tell that darker story, that more difficult story, but in a way that looks like it's a heartwarming, uplifting movie. i know you were quite surprised by how tough some of it was. i felt — for me, i felt it was more a film about the domestic violence than the house building, even though there are some quite joyous scenes with the house building and the way her neighbours come to help and all that sort of thing. i thought it was a clever undercurrent, but a real, a real knot in your stomach, constantly, because you are constantly worried about the abusive man who you know is still out there. so here's the fascinating thing. if you actually look at the amount

of screen time that you see, you know, it's flashbacks — it's fairly little and they're fairly discreet. yes. but this, it's like a tension in your gut all the way through, because they're interspersed as flashbacks and you feel they are the background to everything. i think that's what's clever about the film. i think that what the film is doing, it's sugar—coating the pill by making it apparently about putting the house together, all this stuff, will it happen, will it work, all that stuff, but actually it's about something more serious. and i think if you're going to make something about this kind of story the challenge is to make it acceptable. will i enjoy watching it? well, yes, there is plenty to enjoy in herself. there is also plenty to be alarmed by, but i think that's a pretty good balancing act. yes, i would agree with that. also good performances. and great to see in cinemas, because it was going to go — it had a streaming release because its cinema release was messed up, and it should have won awards, but it was eligible last year and nobody saw it.

so now it's great that it's in cinemas. yes, go see it, absolutely go see it. what's your verdict on best out? see, i love annette, which is the musical by leos carax, with music by sparks. i love sparks, partly an age thing, but i love sparks, absolutely love sparks. this is a story about a cynical comedian who marries a much—loved soprano and they have a baby which is portrayed by a puppet, and the baby inherits the voice of its mother. and it's, like, it's a fable, a very dark fable in many ways. it sounds like a completely bonkers idea but it works for me because there is a kernel of truth in there. i've seen it three times now, i've played the soundtrack over and over again. it has some real earworms. i mean, sparks are great at kind of earworms songs. but i thought it was really wonderful. it looks wacky — beyond wacky! it is, but it's like that thing about quirky. there's a very thin line between "quirky" and "irksome." wacky makes it sound more zany, which, i never like "zany." it's strange and weird and experimental — but it's also, it made me cry. i love films that make me cry.

so doi! the servant, i really, really want to see, though. it won't make you cry. the servant was described — this is a i960sjoe losey film with a screenplay by harold pinter, and dirk bogarde, sarah miles, james fox, wendy craig. and it's about people stuck in a single place, essentially, in which servant and master relationships are turned on their head. you can see it as a film that influenced everything from — er, i mean, parasite takes an awful lot from it. there's a steve woolley film called stone which takes a lot from it in performance. it's in ak, back in cinemas now for a couple of weeks and then you can get it on dvd and download it from the 20th. really worth seeing, you loved the trailer, right? yes, and i liked parasite, and echoes and, yes, yeah. yes, but very cold, very chilly — not a lot of laughs! that's ok, that's ok, get to the cinema nonetheless. that's what we have to say. so lovely to have you back. great to be back, thank you. thanks very much, mark. all the previous shows

are on iplayer, of course. and i hope you can start enjoying some cinemagoing, wouldn't that be fantastic? thanks for being with us, bye—bye. hello and welcome along. 0n the progaramme this evening. will there be a fairy tale ending to radacanu's remarkable run at flushing meadows .. two goals on ronaldo�*s return as united kick start the title race and is the title already slipping from hamilton's grasp as costly errors hit him in sprint qualifying ahead of the italian grand prix.

it has been a remarkable run, one the 18—year—old emma raducanu hopes will end with a maiden grand slam title. her us open final against leylah fernandez begins at nine o clock tonight. and who knows, will she become the first british woman to win a grand slam title in 44 years. joe wilson reports. who is that girl? you may recognise her in this newly released home film footage but you certainly now, here comes that forehand. emma raducanu has been on the radar of british tennis for most of her young life but nobody expected this. nobody thought she could overwhelm opponents to reach the us open final. beating everyone without dropping

a set and barely games is really incredible, we are witnessing a true superstar probably of the next decade of women's tennis, you guys have tennis, you guys have been waiting for that for a long time. virginia wade wimbledon 1977, it has been a while since a british woman last won a grand slam title but globally women's tennis has been waiting as well for a new young player to capture the world's imagination. emma raducanu. it could certainly be her, itjust as easily be leylah fernandez her opponent. the 19—year—old canadian shares a lot with emma, not least the fearlessness of youth, after all what is experience but the memory of defeat. when it is all this new has nothing to lose. so — just over an hour until it all gets underway.

what a night it could be for british sport.