no, i never hated them. they hated me. i mean, they laughed at me. they left me. they harassed me. they attacked me. you want me to beg for my life? i don't have it in me. i won't. i will not offer myself up. they can make their decision. but they're not deciding anything about me. - so on the one hand, you've got the court case, then you have the flashbacks to her life, her childhood — abusive father, abandoned by her mother — relationship with two boys, both of whom let her down. two young men, i should say. the book was a huge hit. the film's credentials are impeccable. and yet, and i hate to say this, it all felt very lukewarm. now, i haven't read the book, so i don't know how somebody who had read the book would feel about it. i know that whenever

a book is this popular, it's always very difficult doing an adaptation. yes. there were moments in this in which i could almost hear the book behind it, thinking, "ok, i can sort of see what the text would have been." the performances are good. i mean, it's a very good cast, it's very well done. the production design is really beautiful. but it all feels very safe. it deals with some dark subject matter, but it feels like a very polite treatment of that subject matter. and i kept thinking, "somewhere in here, there is an earthier, grittier version of this story," but it's kind of got a touch of the nick sparks about it. itjust felt oddly bland. that's not to say it's bad, and it may well be that if you have read the book, you get more out of it. but i did think, "ok, it's kind of..." like i said, despite that swampy setting, it had a very lukewarm feeling and i didn't get emotionally involved in the way that i had expected to, so...

because reese witherspoon options some interesting things, doesn't she? yeah. and she loves stories that put women at the heart of it, and that attracted me to it. but i haven't read the book either. well, it's the ethos of her production company is, you know, stories, women are right at the heart of the production and the stories themselves. i mean, you know, she's a great force in cinema. i confess, it's one of those times when i really wanted to like the film, and i confess that i thought it was ok, but not more than that. right, 0k. sorry. 0k. women at the heart of your second choice as well. yeah, so she will, which is a psychological chiller from director and co—writer charlotte colbert. alice krige is a fading actress called veronica, who is recovering from surgery. she goes to a remote retreat in scotland, where she thinks she'll be on her own. when she gets there, she isn't alone, she's surrounded by a bunch of people, which she doesn't want. it also turns out that the land that the retreat is on has in its ground the ashes of women who were burned there over the years

during the witch hunts. there is also another plot about the director of the film that she starred in when she was 13, played by malcolm mcdowell, and she's having flashbacks to her encounter with him. he is now being greatly revered and yet there is a horrible, haunting sense of what happened in the past. but somehow the ground, the earth, the history of everything that happened in the place that she's at somehow gives her strength. rather than it becoming horrifying, it gives her some kind of dreamy strength. now, the director calls it "a psychological horror "about a woman's expunging of her trauma through dreams" and says it's about revenge, the unconscious and the power of nature. i think that's a very good description. i'd also say that it's a very tactile film. it feels very... you know, i was saying this wasn't true of where the crawdads sing, it feels like it has its feet and its fingers in the earth. the landscape is beautifully evoked.

it has great performances. it has a brilliant score by clint mansell, who is just... just never puts a foot wrong. it's a fairy tale, it's a fable. i thought it was really impressive. it's low—key and understated with moments of sort of shock, but it's not really a horror film. it's much more of a psychological chiller. and i think charlotte colbert will do great work in the future. i thought it was hugely atmospheric to the extent that, you know, i confess i couldn't get to the end of it because it was too creepy for me. yeah. but i thought... i was very impressed with what i was able to watch and thought, "wow, this is a "first—time film—maker? "that's impressive." you feel like you're in that landscape, don't you? yes, completely, and i loved that about it. i thought that was very clever. those scenes when she goes out into the woods and the camera follows her out and you get the sense of the past and the present all intertwining, i thought was... yeah, but then when you're me, you're going, "don't go into the woods!" that's right — "get back on the train! "go back to the safe place." at that point... yeah. but, yeah, really interesting debut. good. kurt vonnegut. where do you stand on kurt vonnegut?

erm... ignorant, to be fair. 0k. although i know an awful lot more after watching this film. so unstuck in time, documentary by robert weide about the american author kurt vonnegut, who rose to fame after writing slaughterhouse—five, which was inspired by his own experiences as a prisoner of war and the bombing of dresden. he had tried to write about it for ages but couldn't find a way to do so, until he found science fiction and comedy as a way into a horrifyingly real subject. here's a clip. when i was a child, and there were many serious things going on, such as the great depression and all that, it was laurel and hardy who gave me permission not to take life seriously. and it turned out that it was ok to laugh your head off. he laughs. life was a very serious business and it inspired me to try and write funny books — that this was a good thing to do with a life, is to be funny. now, what i liked about this is this documentary has interviews taken over a long period of time — cos weide wanted to make this vonnegut documentary —

and there are several interviews. and we also see film of him talking over the years that he didn't complete the documentary. he worked on other things. he worked on a very good adaptation of mother night, which i think is one of the best adaptations of vonnegut�*s novels on screen. and it becomes a story notjust about vonnegut, who... i should say, i love vonnegut. i met vonnegut in manchester when he came to talk. i was one of those fans that the film deals with about how his life was changed by suddenly people going, "0h, mr vonnegut, i think you're the greatest thing on earth!" there's a lot of them. there are a lot of them. so i really enjoyed this. your own feeling about it? i thought it was fascinating. and the documentary side of it, i loved. i mean, the wealth of material is fantastic, notjust of him, all the family archive, even voice recordings of his messages that he's left on answering machines. remember those? i mean, all of that is so rich and wonderful. and i learned masses and i thought it was fascinating. there is a "but" coming. i've heard of slaughterhouse—five, and i'm ashamed to say i've never read it. so that was brilliant. i wasn't. .. i'm not sure i entirely bought into robert weide�*s idea that, "of course, i didn't really

want to be in this film," and then he's in it all the blooming time! actually, at one point, he says... you chose to put yourself in it! i know. at one point, he says, "i don't like the idea of documentaries "in which the director is in it," and you go, "yeah, "you couldn't be in it any more!" ithink... personally, i think it's fair because i think that vonnegut clearly admired him and admired the work that he was doing, and because vonnegut is very hard to pin down. but also i say all this as... i'm a vonnegut fan. there is enough vonnegut in this documentary that i'll just sit there, because even in that clip, when you see him laugh, vonnegut�*s laugh is like steam coming out of a steam train, you know? and i do... i love all the... i love his philosophy of time, that time is not linear, time is something that you can jump in and out of, and i like the fact of dealing with historical tragedies with invention. and, you know, so anyway... but i do know what you mean. it is a film with a lot of the film—maker in it. it really is. really is. but there's lots to enjoy in it. i would say that, i would say that.

ok, so best out — brian and charles, which is a film which is not about a robot, although it appears to be about a robot. a man who is very lonely builds himself a companion, which is a robot built out of a washing machine. and then it's about their friendship and it's about fatherhood and being a child and all those other wonderful things that you don't think a film about a washing machine with a mannequin head on it should be about. i thought it was really charming and it's such a sort of home—grown treat. and, you know, with all the marvel movies doing the rounds in the cinema, why not support brian and charles, a film which really deserves to do well in cinemas? yes, it's a british film and... it's very british. very british! and when i was in the cinema the other day, they had a big charles sitting in the foyer, all made out of silver foil. and it was like a child's toy. i suppose we should say, very welsh, because, i mean, that welsh scenery is absolutely extraordinary. that's absolutely key to it. no, i loved it, i loved it. and then for dvd, the northman... you'll remember that when i reviewed the northman when it came out, i said,

"ok, there are there are a lot "of things wrong with the northman," and it flopped in cinemas. this is robert eggers' viking epic. but there are things right about it as well. and since it didn't do well in cinemas, now that it's out on dvd, this is probably the way to catch up with it. if you didn't see it in cinemas, this is probably the way to go. i mean, there are so many things wrong with the northman. i do seem to remember you saying that at the time! it's a huge, romping viking epic that cost a staggering... it had a massive budget, didn't it? ..directed by robert eggers, who is somebody who makes small, independent arthouse movies about two blokes going crazy in a lighthouse. and i still look at the film and i wonder how it came into existence, but it is worth seeing. and if you didn't make it to see it in the cinema — and many didn't, and i understand why — dvd is the chance. but, you know, if you're going to the cinema, go and see brian and charles. yeah, that's next on the list. thank you very much.

and read kurt vonnegut�*s novels! but now i do want to, you see. and that's the success of the documentary. i'm going to bring you a copy of breakfast of champions. you do that. that's my homework. enjoy your cinema—going this week, whatever you choose to go and see. see you next time, bye—bye. this month continues to be very dry. the rainfall stats shows so far across southern wales and east anglia there has been hardly any rain at all. on sunday we have seen some rain around what the majority of that has been falling across parts of northern ireland and scotland where it has been heavy. we have had the zone of rain stretching and across parts of wales as well bringing some welcome relief from the very dry conditions we've seen. one of our weather watchers spotted something rare forjuly in wales... a puddle. it has been a warm and

sunny day, hot across parts of east anglia where temperatures reached over 30 celsius. looking at the weather forecast overnight we will continue with the south—westerly winds feeding in patchy rain and more persistent heavy rain across northern scotland, where we have a weather front and that is slowly going to be sinking southwards towards the end of the night. a fresher night for scotland and northern ireland but for england and wales it is another warm light, temperature 16 to 18 degrees for many and this area of low pressure that has been around all weekend, on monday slowly works out towards norway. we get these north and north winds following in, we have these bands of rain coming southwards across scotland into north—east england as we head through the course of the afternoon. the temperatures dropping across the board, high teens generally across the north of the uk, england and wales also seeing the cooler weather, but still quite warm across east anglia and the south—east. nothing into the 30s but mid 20s,

warming up. forthe nothing into the 30s but mid 20s, warming up. for the rest of the week, high pressure dominates the weather picture for much of the week ahead until we see the slow moving in towards the end of the week and that will bring wet and windy weather to northern ireland and scotland. on tuesday, a dry picture for many of you with sunny spells. they will be a few showers around eastern england running from north yorkshire to about kent. many of the showers that form, probably not bringing that the train and there will be some areas that miss them all together. they will not change the overall theme of the dryjuly we have seen and continue to see. high pressure for england and wales, dry, sunny and warm weather developing in scotland and northern ireland will see rain for a time towards the end of the week.

this is bbc news. the headlines at seven. delays around the port of dover and folkestone are easing after holidaymakers and hauliers faced a third day of disruption at the channel tunnel. at folkestone at about 9am yesterday morning for a train at 10.30, and then we've slowly been crawling along for the past 21—plus hours. the entire board of cricket scotland resigns ahead of a review expected to find scottish cricket to be institutionally racist. a major incident is declared in surrey because of a large fire. crews in london are also tackling several weather—related fires. meanwhile, firefighters in california struggle to contain a huge blaze there. it comes as the us special envoy for climate, john kerry,

says president biden may announce a climate emergency.