nasa, the artemis project which by nasa, the artemis project which aims to put people back on the moon after a 50 year absence. you are watching bbc news. now on bbc news the film review with anna smith hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is anna smith. so, anna, what's in store this week? well, first up, idris elba takes on an angry lion in the survival thriller called beast. then we're off to france for a drama called her way, which is starring call my agent's laure calamy. and then finally, penelope cruz and antonio banderas send up the film industry in a comedy called official competition.

so, first then, beast in which idris elba fights a lion. is there much more to it than that? that is basically it. but i'll set up the story for you. there is a bit of an attempt to sort of set up the characters in this thriller. he plays a widower who goes off to south africa with his two daughters for a holiday to see their friend who's working on a reserve there, trying to protect the lions, but some very evil poachers have been doing quite the opposite. and one lion becomes very angry and goes searching after humans to attack. let's have a look at a clip. 0k. i'm going to go out there, please. - you up here? huh? get in the car now!

i was just about to say, do we actually see the lion? and then, yeah, you do. you do. obviously, there's some superb visual effects involved here, but it feels very convincing. it is a bit of a nail biter, i would say. probably not as much action as i was expecting. there's a lot of sort of pauses while they build the characters and talk to each other. and there's the whole storyline about the family having lots of tension. but i think in the action scenes it is quite exciting. one of the issues for me here is that there's no real winners in this story. it's not one of those things with an obvious baddie, i mean, because it's a bit of a lose—lose situation. whoever wins in this scenario because you feel very sorry for the lion whose pride has been killed. so it's quite

a sad story in a way. so it's not a popcorn thriller in the old—fashioned sense, but idris elba's very good and he plays a kind of everyman hero. this isn't the kind of heroic kind of story about a man who's going to save his family by turning into a total action hero. he's he looks visibly scared, which seems a bit more realistic in a way. and, yes, it does. it looks very beautiful as well as these films do when they're shot somewhere like that. next, the french film her way. now, it's a cert 18. so that might give us a bit of a clue. yeah, i'll tell you why in a second. it starts off, it's more like a traditional drama. it's about a woman who's trying to help her young son. he's a teenager. he wants to go to a very expensive chef school. she can't really afford to send him there. one of the reasons for that is that she's a prostitute. so she's a sex worker, she's self—employed. she pays her taxes. but the trouble is there are a lot of problems that obviously come along with that in terms of legal issues and trying to get a loan. so it's the story of one woman who happens to have an unusual job trying to look after her son and fend for her son. and ifound this

rather interesting because you don't normally see this kind of story on screen. are there any twists in it or is it literally the story of her struggle and her despair at times? i wouldn't say it's twist driven, but it does enter into thriller territory towards the end because she starts to take more and more extreme measures to try and find the money. this is a fantastic central performance and she really does strike you as a bulldozer, a woman who will try to get this no matter what she wants. and also, if you're interested in characters, which i am, i think in family dynamics, this is quite sophisticated. there are some wonderful scenes between the mother and the son where you see the tension between them and you see her kind of shouting at this sullen teenager, not knowing how to deal with him. and you as a viewer are going, just calm down, both of you, and talk. and he's sort of waiting for that resolution to come. yeah, that'll resonate with a lot of parents, probably, won't it? and the lead actor here, she'll be quite well known to a lot of people in this country. that's right. from call my agent on netflix and of course, a beautiful actress. she's fantastic in this role. she feels very authentic

to me in this. there's a lot of research that's gone into it, i think. and is her son aware of what she does for a living? he is. and that, again, adds tension to the story because you don't see them discussing the nature of her work initially. but you sense that's a source of great tension in the house and then it comes to a bit of a head. third then is official competition with some very big names in this film. well, i'm a big fan of a lot of the people involved in this film. it stars penelope cruz as a kind of way out larger—than—life film director, official competition. she plays a fantastic woman, lola cuevas, who is quite pretentious, and she's hired to make a very expensive film on the whim of a producer who's got a lot of money to spend. she decides to spend nine days workshopping with her two ideal actors, and they're played by antonio banderas and oscar martinez. let's have a look at a clip.

it's very understated, isn't it? but you can feel the tension between the egos. absolutely. so you see from that, you've got two very, very different styles of acting that they've purposely put together. and one is a very pompous a—lister who's quite full of himself, but actually feeling quite vulnerable with all these arthouse directors and actors around him. and the other is, of course, is, you know, lectures to students.

and seeing that oneupmanship develop over the time that they're workshopping this film is very entertaining. and i think whether or not you're interested in film, it is actually really funny. and penelope cruz, looks was very different, isn't she, in this? she does indeed. wonderful costumes and hair in this. i wanted all her outfits as extreme as they were. but also, i think what's great is that we see another side to her. i mean, she's always done comedy with the likes of pedro almodovar, but often in the more dramatic roles. but here she is, the centre of the story, and she really is the comedy of the story in many ways as well. she's fantastic. yeah, i look forward to seeing it. i've seen these posters for this film for quite a few weeks now. it seems to have had quite a bit of a push and it has really caught my eye. there's something about it, even in posterform, that pulls you in. it's visually stunning and i do think you will enjoy it. i certainly laughed a lot and it goes to great extremes, increasingly absurd extremes. so there's some laugh—out—loud moments later in the film. spanish films seem to do quite well at british box offices.

i mean, maybe not in all cinemas, but they seem to have cut through in a way that maybe other foreign language films haven't. i think they have a wonderful sense of humour that perhaps the british enjoy sometimes, and this is definitely one of those cases. it almost feels if it was a british film or, rather, a hollywood film, it could be directed by the coen brothers. it has that kind of mass appeal, sending up the film industry, very affectionate humour. and of course, over here we tend to only get the very best spanish films, and this is one of those. yes, we are treated to that. and there's always something meta about it as well, isn't it? the film industry, looking at the film industry totally. i mean, it's quite funny seeing these actors sending up acting, thinking i wonder if they've actually ever said that in real life or done that in real life? there's a hilarious, absurd scene where she makes them bring their awards in and then destroys them in front of them while they're completely immobilized. and you think, gosh, i wonder if that actually ever happened? oh, the power. our producer this week of the film review is paloma and she's from madrid. so i'm sure she approves of this choice. next, anotherforeign language film, french again, and anais in love,

which is the best out. is it deliberate that you've chosen all of these? accidental? so well, actually at the moment, as has been widely publicised recently, there's not a lot of popcorn blockbusters in cinemas because it's the summer and also pandemic related. but also, i like to choose some of the best films and, quite frankly, some of the best films out this week are foreign language. and we've got a lovely french film called anais in love. it's a very engaging, romantic comedy about a young woman who has an affair with a man and then actually transfers her attentions to his female partner. so it all gets very interesting. but again, really well scripted, great characters, a lot of fun, terrific performances. yeah, i also read that as a character, you'd probably not really want to spend too much time with her, but she's quite an engaging character on screen. she's quite a complex character. she's someone that probably is quite annoying to watch. i think she'd be quite magnetic to hang outwith, actually. she sort of... then you would get annoyed with her after the event �*cause she'd never call you or never say anything she ever promised that she'd do. she's a woman that lives in the moment, but very sparkly performance and, yeah, quite sophisticated script. and this one is... has it had much uptake in the cinemas?

has it been sort of independent cinemas more than anywhere? well, yeah, it's a curzon film, so you're mostly finding it in curzon cinemas, but also now on digital as well. and home cinema, the best dvd. all my friends hate me. a psychological drama about what your mind can do to itself. it is a lot about mental health, about paranoia, about anxiety, but on the face of it, it starts off like it could be a richard curtis movie. it's a sort of country house, university reunion, lots of quite posh friends getting together. and then one guy suddenly starts to think, do my friends actually hate me? and he starts to unravel. and we see everything through his eyes, which i find really interesting because you're starting to question, you know, is he imagining this and you're feeling his paranoia with him? so it's almost edging on psychological horror. but i thought it was very clever and it kept me awake at night in a good way thinking about it. yeah, and how did — did it do well in the cinema? i think it's it, well, again, it's on the arthouse level, but i think if you're a fan of the likes of ben wheatley, then this is a film that if you missed it in cinema, you should catch it

on dvd from monday. anna, lovely to see you as always. thank you, anna smith. that's it for this week. thanks for watching. goodbye. hello. lots of places dry to start the week. sunnis conditions towards the week. sunnis conditions towards the south and the west right now. it is going to be breezy at times across southern areas for the next few days, turning warmer midweek and there may be rain later on. out there may be rain later on. out there today, only a few showers, particularly through eastern parts of england and western scotland. most places dry. cool breeze across some of the eastern coast with plenty of cloud and the sunniest and warmest conditions to the south and the west. even in the evening temperatures in the low 20s. showers in western scotland will fade but a few more will crop up in parts of

south—east england and east anglia and still, that wind will be somewhat of a feature. it will stop the temperatures from dropping much by night but we could get down to mid—single figures in parts of scotland, parts of north—west england and north wales. high pressure is dominating the weather at the moment and the driest weather centre to the north, and we continue to see showers dotted around, greater chance across eastern and south—eastern parts of england tomorrow, may be drifting into some south southeast midlands and the home counties. you showers in western scotland. most places will be dry. sunnis conditions on the western parts of england and wales. the weather to be found across southern counties of england and into south wales, 23 2a degrees. warming up across parts of scotland and north—east england into wednesday as the breeze eases down. there will be showers dotted around the pennines and western parts of scotland and temperatures much like what we will see on tuesday in the

mid teens across eastern areas and into the mid 20s across the south. by into the mid 20s across the south. by the time we hit thursday the wind that has been blustery across southern counties eases and the sunshine is developing across the uk. most places dry, few if any showers. into the low 20s across western scotland by the stage and lighter winds across the south and temperatures will creep up a bit more, 25/26. as we head towards the end of the week on the weekend, low pressure across france and will give us a greater chance of seeing rain, especially across parts of the west of the uk. see you soon.

nasa is hoping to launch the first mission of its artemis project which will ultimately send astronauts back to the moon. the giant uncrewed rocket will spend six weeks flying around the moon and back. and i am at the kennedy space centre, where we are waiting to hear of the team can resolve multiple technical problems and launch. in our other news this lunchtime... floods in pakistan... the country's foreign minister describes it as a "catastrophe" on a scale he has never seen before. new research shows that there are farfewer shops closing on high streets and town centres across the uk. and hundreds of thousands of revellers are expected at the notting hill carnival in london.