hmm. 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, you know, 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 somebody who was a 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, you know, 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 that 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 — ijust happen to have in my bag... i quite like a courtroom drama too, you see, so... but... 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 fairly contrived and it does, you know, 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 pot—boiler 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, it's in cinemas now. ok, now, respect.

i really want this to be good. yes. because aretha franklin — what a figure, what a life story. an extraordinary life story. and so the good news is, she's played byjennifer hudson, who is fantastic in the lead role — i mean, i think 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 that 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 is — 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 set pieces are fantastic — i mean, really fantastic — and it goes from the 1950s

in detroit up to 1972 and the recording of, you know, 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, you know, was delayed for so long, so i think it's worth seeing it forjennifer hudson's performance because she's terrific. ijust — i wanted the film to be more exceptional and an awful lot of the rock biopics have got the same beats, they've got the same story points. a lot of this seems familiar. but she carries it shoulder high and when she's on stage, when she's 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. i mean, she's got the physical performance absolutely down pat, so that's great. the film itself, however, not as good as her performance. 0k, yes, a mixed bag. i mean, jennifer hudson is very talented, isn't she? and herself — i'm — well, i'm fascinated to know what you made of it. ok, so i mentioned that i don't think that 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, 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? hmm. our own house? hmm. 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, not granddad and especially, - especially not daddy. why? i'm just going by what ado the builder said. i he said that's the rules — i 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? 0h, it'sjust a code word. it's better you don't know. yeah. so. no telling, 0k? hmm. pinkie promise? both: one... ..two. . .three. .. ..pinkie promise! 0h, girls. oh, and that's a fantastic clip, ithink... it's beautiful! ..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 of it 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 that you get from something like witness — remember the barn building scene in witness? — which everyone loves, it's everyone's favourite scene — 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 heart—warming, uplifting movie. i know that 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. just that — 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 kind of a tension in your gut all the way through because they're interspersed as flashbacks and you feel that they are the background to everything. i think that's what's clever about the film. i think that what the film is doing is kind of, you know, it's sugar—coating the pill by making it apparently about putting a house together. and there's all this stuff — will it happen? will it work? all that stuff — but underneath it's about something more serious. and i think if you're going to make a film about this kind of story, the challenge is to make it acceptable. to make it — yeah — 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 —

you know, 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, it's 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's got some real earworms — i mean, sparks are great at kind of earworms songs — but i thought it was really wonderful. it's. .. it looks wacky - beyond wac ! it is, but it's like the thing about quirky, you know? 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. oh, well, so do i! the servant i really, really want to see, though. it won't make you cry. 0h! 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, ithink, 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, then you can get it on dvd and download from the 20th. really worth seeing. you loved the trailer, right? yes, yes, yes, and i liked parasite, and echoes and — yes, yeah. yes, but very cold, very cold! very chilly — not a lot of laughs! chuckles. that's ok, that's ok. get to the cinema nonetheless, that's what we have to say. so lovely to have you back.

thanks very much, mark. great to be back, thank you. see you very soon. all the previous shows are on iplayer, of course. and i hope you can start enjoying some cinema—going. wouldn't that be fantastic? thanks for being with us. bye— bye. the pattern across the uk will stay unsettled because of this wave that goes northwards, it brings rain to parts of wales and the south west of england but it's a concentrated area of rent which will then spill into parts of the midlands and the north

of england, just spits and spots here, and temperatures will be mostly in the teens, the warmer and brighter weather will be across the south—east. only around 13 in aberdeen and that is because the winds are coming in from the north. but when i mentioned the fact that it is going to be quite unpredictable it is because, notice the winds are coming in from the south here, they are blowing in from the north there, there is a weather front stuck in between and that means it is very, very slow moving and in fact it will be very slow moving across the southern half of the uk, broadly speaking, over the next two—three days, so getting the timing right of where exactly it is going to rain and for how long is going to be quite tricky. so here is the forecast for monday and clearly it is quite wet across parts of wales. some rain gets into south—western england, but notice that rain has a tendency to sweep a bit further north and not much eastward progression, so i think on monday eastern areas probably staying dry, if not bright. but by the time we get to tuesday, again

that very sluggish rain will push eastwards, so it's in the west where we will see more sunshine, whereas further east for a time, at least in the morning and early afternoon, that rain will linger before clearing off into the north sea. i think from wednesday into thursday that is when the weather will start to settle down and that is because an area of high pressure is building. we have got the azores here, this is called the azores high. you can see this nose of high pressure, what we often refer to, is building towards the uk, which means parts of the country will see slightly higher temperatures and you can see the weather settling down there with the dry weather icons, for london, for example. that is it. bye— bye!

this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 7pm: emma raducanu makes history at the us open, beating leylah fernandez to become the first british woman to win a grand slam singles final in 44 years. the queen is among those congratulating the teenager, following her stunning victory in new york, just months after finishing her a—levels. to have a note from her, i was extremely honoured and very grateful that she took notice of my tennis. i can't believe it, i'm maybe going to frame that letter or something. the government scraps plans for vaccine passports in nightclubs and large events in england. what i can say is we have looked at it properly and, while we should keep it in reserve as a potential option, i am pleased to say we will not be going ahead with plans

for vaccine passports.