Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 22/2/2018)

Indeed, the story opens with Bibi Andersson being called to the hospital where her mother, Barbro Hiort af Ornäs, has just died. She looks at her possessions on the bedside table and bursts into tears when the nurse insists that she takes her wedding and engagement rings. As she sobs in an cloakroom, Andersson is interrupted by Elliott Gould, who asks if there is anything he can do to help before beating a hasty retreat.

During the credit sequence showing scenes around the Swedish island of Gotland, however, Andersson and Gould are seen wandering around together and he comes to her house as a guest after he is treated for kidney stones by her surgeon husband, Max von Sydow. He meets their children, Maria Nolgård and Staffan Hallerstam, and gets cheerfully drunk looking at family photos. However, in between telling the couple about his archaeological dig at a nearby church, he also informs Andersson that he fell in love with her the moment he saw her and jokingly asks Von Sydow during a slide show if he has a picture of his wife naked.

Despite the fact she has been happily married to Von Sydow for 15 years and feels uncomfortable when Gould touches her hand while showing her the smiling wooden statue of the Virgin Mary he has uncovered, Andersson beams coyly at herself in the mirror on arriving home. She toys with telling her husband that something is on her mind, but throws herself into her daily routine instead. A housekeeping montage follows that is full of modish camera angles and transitions, as Andersson is seen through cupboard doors and racks of clothing, while she masks cuts by tossing quilt covers and tea towels over the camera to black out the screen. Amusingly, this is followed by another (accompanied by the same Swingle-style a cappella on the soundtrack), in which she tries on various outfits in order to make a good impression on meeting Gould again.

Bursting into Gould's apartment, Andersson trims some flowers in a vase on his coffee table and chatters nervously as he pours her sherry. Impetuously, she suggests they go to bed together and then launches into a breathless speech about her body's flaws and what a disappointing mistress she will make. She urges Gould to warm her up and they hold each other, as they get used to the enormity of the step they are taking. When they wake, some time later, she has to leave to collect Von Sydow from the airport. But she likes the urgency of Gould's kisses and the feeling of being desired.

When she calls him the next morning, however, she is surprised by his insistence that she drops everything to come to his apartment. She is even more taken aback when he seems morose under the influence of sleeping pills and alcohol and tries to wriggle free when he throws himself upon her. But she allows him to make rough love to her, even though she rolls away tearfully after he bawls at her not to look at him as he pounds away at her. Yet she returns to collect apples with Von Sydow in their garden and helps her son with his French homework, while sticking pictures in a photo album. That night, she dozes off while reading in bed and strokes Von Sydow's hand when he tucks her in.

But Andersson has become besotted with Gould and, when he fails to return her calls, she goes to the dig where he is unearthing a skull to plead with him not to freeze her out, as she has no intention of making any demands on him, as long as they remain together. He hugs her and her head sinks into his chest. When they next meet, he shows her a photo album and explains how his German parents had sent him and his sister to New York in the 1930s before being murdered by the Nazis. She is touched by his sadness and makes her excuses to leave a swish luncheon that Von Sydow has thrown for his colleagues. Andersson is hurt, therefore, when Gould slaps her across the face for being tipsy and she is sniffling her way down the staircase when he catches up with her and returns her to his rooms for some tender love-making.

Alone with Von Sydow over the weekend, Andersson plays chess and pretends not to have noticed the small cut on her lip. He invites her to accompany him to a conference in Rome and is surprised when she seems indifferent. In their room, he beckons her to stand before him in front of the mirror. He opens her white robe and she leans against him before submitting to him in bed. Shortly afterwards, she bids Gould farewell outside the church where he has been working. The choir is rehearsing inside and he has to go to London to give a series of lectures. Andersson is scared by their parting and wonders if he will return in six months.

Facing the camera, Andersson and Gould deliver lines from their letters, which veer from bits of inconsequential news to confessions of longing. She is still afraid that he will decide to stay away. But he returns and Andersson drops everything to meet at his apartment and is pleasantly surprised to see he has shaved off his bushy beard.

Peeling vegetables with her daughter, Andersson notices a certain frostiness. But it's only when Von Sydow calls on Gould that she realises her secret is out. Von Sydow produces a poison pen letter (presumably from snooping neighbour Aino Taube) and informs Gould that he has no reason to disbelieve the gossip. Aware that Andersson is in the bedroom, Von Sydow reveals that he prepares to do nothing about the affair and will leave it to Andersson to make her painful decision. Gould sneers that he holds all the cards, as she will never leave her children, and Von Sydow ticks him off for being so aggressive when he is the one in the wrong. He also makes sure that Andersson overhears him discussing the suicide attempt with a gas stove that brought Gould to his surgery. As he leaves, Andersson pleads with Gould not to lose faith in their passion. But, when he appears non-committal, she tells him to do whatever suits him best.

On arriving home, Andersson finds Von Sydow in his study. She bursts into tears and he offers a handkerchief, as they walk through the downstairs rooms together. Neither says anything. A couple of days later, Andersson is out shopping with Nolgård when Gould knocks on the store window to get her attention. Aware that her daughter is old enough to notice what is going on, Andersson urges Gould to behave himself and agrees to meet him at the church the next day. He shows her the Marian statue that has been removed from its niche in the wall and explains how a dormant insect has hatched its eggs and has started to eat away the image from the inside. She sinks into a pew and begs him not to leave her, as she isn't sure she can live without him. He shrugs as she suggests that Von Sydow might be amenable to sharing her. But, as they stand outside by the carving of a serpent in the church wall, Gould apologises to Andersson for putting her through such anguish.

When she doesn't hear from him, Andersson goes to Gould's flat and is aghast to find he has cleared out. She presses her hand into the shards of a broken water glass, as she finds a stash of unmailed letters in the desk drawer. Desperate to find out why he has abandoned her, she asks Von Sydow for permission to fly to London. But he warns her that there will be no going back if she leaves, as he has grown bored with being caught up in her cheap melodrama. She shrugs and heads for the airport, where a grumpy immigration official stamps her tourist visa.

Approaching the only address she has with some trepidation, Andersson is greeted by Sheila Reid, who reveals herself to be his sister. She has a severe neurological disorder in her hands and tells Andersson that Gould suffers from the same hereditary condition. Offering her brandy, Reid guesses that Andersson is pregnant and warns her that Gould will never leave her alone, as their bond is so strong. Andersson understands and heads home without bothering to see Gould.

Several months later, a heavily pregnant Andersson is still living at home, but sleeping alone. She gets up in the night to find Von Sydow, but there is no sign of him and she curls up on the kitchen floor with a pillow and a blanket. A few days later, she goes to a hothouse beside a river to meet Gould. He is on a flying visit to inform her that he has been offered a professorship and wants her to move in with him. Gould explains how he had been racked with physical pain since being apart from her. But Andersson insists that her duty lies with her family and he accuses her of lying as he storms away.

Ending without closing credits to suggest that this story is anything but over, The Touch has always been the poor relation of the Bergman canon. Indeed, it shares the ignominy with the romantic thriller This Can't Happen Here (1950) of having never been released on DVD in this country. But, while it would be dwarfed by Cries and Whispers (1971) and Scenes From a Marriage (1973), this is anything but the calamity that Bergman would have us believe.

Admittedly, some of the dialogue sounds a little stilted (although this is the rarely seen Anglo-Swedish version of the film rather than the wholly Anglophone version) and it would have been much more interesting had Bergman opted for either Paul Newman, Robert Redford or Dustin Hoffman as the predatory, yet insecure and sometimes self-loathing archaeologist instead of the often unconvincing Elliott Gould. But Bibi Andersson is simply superb, as the model housewife who is shaken out of her cosy routine by a dangerous liaison she becomes powerless to resist until she is on the brink of losing everything.

In his last appearance for Bergman, Von Sydow also brings a mature intelligence that makes his meeting with Gould and his final conversation with Andersson all the more potent. Even Sheila Reid (in a cameo that made her the first and only Brit to feature in a Bergman picture) makes an impact, if only because her twisted fingers provide as stark a reminder as Gould's vicious slap of the touches and caresses that had prompted Andersson to surrender to her long suppressed desires. Not all of the symbolism is as subtle, however, with the discovery of the Marian statue that is eaten away from the inside after being released from its protective cocoon being particularly gauche.

Siv Lundgren's editing can also seem a little obvious, as can Jan Johansson's score. But production designers Ann-Christin Lobråten and PA Lundgren capably contrast Andersson's pristine bourgeois home with Gould's bohemian flat, while cinematographer makes typically deft Eastmancolor use of the landscape, architecture and muted colours of Gotland. As for Bergman, he clearly struggles at times to make a film on his own terms while trying to give his American backers the accessibly sexy Swedish romdram they wanted (hence the frequency of Andersson's toplessness). Moreover, his character definition is sometimes hazy, with the result that some of Gould's more childishly erratic behaviour can seem melodramatic. But this is full of striking images and recurring themes and no Bergmanophile can afford to miss it.

Much cyber ink has been spent in the run up to the Academy Awards on Greta Gerwig's nomination for Best Director for her splendid feminist teenpic, Lady Bird. Yet few took the time to ponder why she failed to make the cut at the BAFTAs and nobody bothered to lament the fact that Lynne Ramsey (We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2011) remains the sole British woman to be nominated in this category since it was introduced at the 22nd ceremony in 1969. By contrast, 17 French women have been nominated since the Césars were launched in 1976, although, even here, Tonie Marshall remains the only female victor for Venus Beauty Intitute (2000).

Admittedly, the Césars are consciously Gallocentric and nobody is suggesting that BAFTA should indulge in parochialism or tokenism, especially after it has just presented the award for Outstanding British Debut to Welsh-Zambian newcomer Rungano Nyoni for I Am Not a Witch (2017). But, while competition will always be tight for such prestigious awards, the desire to attract Hollywood bigwigs to the annual bash does limit the opportunities to recognise the achievements of such talents as Andrea Arnold, Amma Assante, Gurinder Chadha, Sarah Gavron, Joanna Hogg, Phyllida Lloyd, Carol Morley, Sally Potter, Sam Taylor-Johnson and Penny Woolcock.

Another name that could be added to this list is Clio Barnard, who has demonstrated a consistently innovative approach to both storytelling and image-making in The Arbor (2010) and The Selfish Giant (2013). Yet she rather marks time with Dark River, which follows Hope Dickson Leach's The Levelling (2016) in exploring the social and psychological pressures placed upon female farmers. Taking its title from a Ted Hughes poem and its inspiration from Rose Tremain's 2010 novel, Trespass (which was set in rural France), this brooding drama was based on Barnard's extensive research into the field of traumatic memory and was produced with the aid of a grant from the Wellcome Trust.

On hearing that her father, Richard (Sean Bean), has died, Alice Bell (Ruth Wilson) decides to quit her job as a sheep shearer and return to the family farm in Yorkshire after 15 years away. As she packs, she has a vision of Richard creeping into her bedroom and even hears his breathing as she settles down to sleep. Stains of PJ Harvey's `An Acre of Land' rise on the soundtrack, as we see snapshots and keepsakes on the family sideboard, as Alice steels herself to see her brother, Joe (Mark Stanley), for the first time since she left home.

Although pocked with pylons, the surrounding countryside is verdantly lush, as Alice turns off the winding road. The outbuildings look rundown and a rat scurries through the kitchen as she ventures inside the farmhouse where she had grown up. She calls to her brother and flinches as she imagines she sees her father looming on the stairs. Struggling to regain her composure, she goes for a swim in the nearby waterfall pool and smiles as some tweenage girls splash each other in the cold, clear water. Striding over the fields with a metal crook in her hand, Alice gets back to the farm as darkness falls and has to use a torch to find her way around the cluttered prefab shed where she bunks down for the night. As she looks around and hears the sound of sheep scrabbling to clamber through a gap in a dry stone wall, her mind goes back to the childhood nights when she (Esme Creed-Miles) had had been forced to share her bed with her father.

The next morning, Alice discovers a ewe with a broken leg near the wall. She returns the farm as Joe drives up in a large lorry and seems surprised to see her. He is anything but welcoming, however, as he pets the chained-up dog he uses more as an alarm system than a sheepdog. Alice mentions the injured sheep and goes to sit with it until someone can come and put it out of its misery. She recognises David (Joe Dempsie) from her youth, but is frostily businesslike when he asks what she has been doing and she watches with a stern gaze as the winding mechanism hauls the carcass into his truck.

Reconnecting the power to the shack, Alice tidies up and unpacks, amidst flashbacks to happy times with her teenage brother (Aiden McCullough). Joe invites her to the house for supper and she reluctantly accepts. He teases her about seeing the world while he had stayed home to look after Richard and he lets her know that her father had kept asking for her while he was dying. Plucking up the courage, Alice informs Joe that she intends applying for tenancy of the farm because their father had promised it to her and Joe is barely able to suppress his sense of outrage at what he sees as her prodigal opportunism.

Joe is still angry the following morning when Alice shows Rowan the land agent (Mike Noble) around the property. He warns Alice that the walls and outbuildings need to be repaired and that she needs to get the vermin problem under control. But, while she agrees to comply in order to advance her claim, Joe insults the landowner's oppo and Alice has to reassure him that she will be able to calm him down so they can manage the business together. Later that day, she tries to start a conversation with Joe while teaching his dog a few basis commands. She asks if their father had suffered and winces when he confirms that he had. But, when she goes to bed that night, Alice is again tormented by her memories, as her younger and current self listen out in the night for the sound of Richard's footsteps.

Keen to make a start on getting the farm into shape, Alice goes to the barn to lay down some rat poison. But Joe shows her a couple of owls nesting in the hayloft before taking her into the field she thinks could be used for silage to show her a rare clump of Shepherd's Needle. Their expressions soften and they are siblings again, as he enthuses about the insects and small mammals scurrying around in the hedgerows. However, Alice realises that some tough decisions will have to be taken if they are to keep the farm and suggests selling a few lambs to pay for a contractor to mow the field. But Joe is adamant that she can't just show up after so long away and start changing the way he has been doing things in her absence.

Alice takes some lambs to market and cuts a deal with Jim (Steve Garti) to mow the field. As she enters the auction ring, she bumps into Matty (Dean Andrews), who is pleased to see her back. But she argues with Jim after she fails to get the expected price for the lambs and he offers to give her a discount because he was such good friends with Richard. When he ticks her off for not even coming back for the funeral, Alice withdraws her offer and he accuses her of being as hard-faced as her mother.

Matty proves more reliable, however, and helps Alice shear the sheep. Returning from driving his truck (which he needs to do to make ends meet), Joe is livid with her for making a decision without consulting him and he squares up to Matty, who reminds him he is lucky to have such a sister. As they dip the sheep together, Joe tells Alice that he has made a counter claim for the tenancy and, when she charges into the house after him, she is stopped in her tracks by the sight of Richard stomping down the stairs and telling Joe to look after her. This sparks a recollection of the time that Joe caught her kissing the younger David (Jake Hayward) and threatened to beat him up.

Already confused about what to do with Alice, Joe has his thinking further muddied by land developer Simon Shawcross (William Travis), who is in cahoots with the landlords (who want the land for holiday homes) and offers him £100,000 if he can secure the tenancy and sell up without Alice having any comeback. Trying to work out what to do for the best, Joe gets drunk and smashes up the kitchen. Moreover, as Alice skins and cooks a rabbit in her shack, he douses her Land Rover in petrol and she has to fight him off with a pair of clippers in order to make her escape. Weighing up her options, she calls the police and arrives back at the farm in time to see Joe being bundled into the back of a patrol car.

While borrowing a good ratting dog from Matty, she tells him about the incident and he reassures her that she has done the right thing in reporting him. She returns to fumigate the farmhouse and, on entering her old bedroom for the first time, has flashbacks to her father imposing himself upon her and Joe doing nothing to defend her. He gets back from the cells and accuses her of being a coward for getting him arrested when she had brandished blades at him and he says he wants nothing more to do with her. That night, Alice gets tipsy at the village pub and has sex with David in his car. However, she keeps thinking back to Joe dragging her out of the same bar on Richard's orders after she had gone to meet David.

The following morning, the land agent turns up to announce that the tenancy has been awarded to Joe and Alice is aghast because he can barely look after himself, let alone run the farm. The pair argue further when Joe arranges for the sheep to be taken to auction and Alice is knocked out as they fight over a gate. Thunder booms in the leaden skies and the wind whistles through the trees to reinforce the sense of foreboding, as the sheep huddle in the field against the downpour. As a man clears Alice's belongings out of the shed, she wakes on her old bed and mistakes Joe offering her a glass of water for Richard looming towards her. He asks why she never attempted to resist him and is dismayed when she reveals that she used to go to his room because she couldn't stand the agony of waiting for him to prey on her. She inquires why Joe never tried to stop him and he rushes out of the room in shame.

Alice follows him and see Tower (Shane Attwooll) the developer's man loading up a van. She is about to curse Joe for being so foolish as to sell out when his dog escapes and charges into the sheep field. It savages one of the animals and Alice charges after it with a shotgun. As she approaches the waterfall, she becomes confused by flashbacks to Richard chasing her into the woods by torchlight and she fires at the ghost haunting her. However, she hits Tower and Joe rushes up in time to see him die. He grabs the weapons and runs away, leaving Alice to pull the body into the water and hold it down. She wanders into a field in a daze and curls into a ball, as the rain hammers down. Meanwhile, armed police swoop on the farm to arrest Joe.

The house has been boarded up by the time Alice returns to pick an ear of corn to take to Joe in prison. He has seemingly taken the blame for the shooting in an overdue bid to protect his sister and they sit in silence during visiting hour. Alice gets tearful as the bell rings and she smiles when her brother agrees to let her see him again. He returns to his cell, leaving Alice sitting alone in the empty hall. As the film ends, the young Joe and Alice open the barn door and wander out into a frost-dusted field.

There's a temptation to view every young woman toiling on a farm as a latterday Bathsheba Everdene. But, while Alice Bell follows in the footsteps of Francine (Rebecca Palmer) and Kath (Demelza Russell) in Andrew Kötting's This Filthy Earth (2001) and Clover Catto (Ellie Kendrick) in The Levelling, she never quite convinces as a daughter of the soil. She might shear and dip a few sheep and gut a rabbit, but she seems to have little feel for either the homestead itself or how to turn around its fortunes. Indeed, notwithstanding the gloomily dank interiors designed by Helen Scott and Brazilian cinematographer Adriano Goldman's watchful views of the changing seasons, the entire picture has authenticity issues, whether they relate to a handful of rats being passed off as an infestation or the attitude towards the siblings of the wider community.

Unlike that of another recent Yorkshire sheep-farming yarn, Francis Lee's God's Own Country, the central storyline also feels hackneyed. In fact, it vaguely echoes RF Delderfield's adaptation of one of his own stage plays for Vernon Sewell's Where There's a Will (1955), a low-budget British comedy that saw Turkish bath attendant Leslie Dwyer arguing with Cockney sisters Dandy Nichols and Thelma Ruby over the Devonian farm bequeathed to them by an estranged uncle. Despite tapping into the ongoing crisis in British agriculture, several elements in Barnard's scenario seem contrived, such as the property developer coming from nowhere to tempt Joe into treachery, while the ominous throb of Harry Escott's score makes the entire denouement feel increasingly melodramatic and improbable.

Yet Ruth Wilson delivers a flintily Brontësque performance that is made all the more unsettling by Barnard's ingenious staging of the flashbacks, which often give the impression that past and present are existing within the same frame. Luke Dunkley and Nick Fenton's deft editing further helps blur the time frames, while Sean Bean's menacing presence is as laudably underplayed as Esme Creed-Miles's creeping sense of dread. Mark Stanley has more of a struggle with the thinly sketched and more stereotypical brother, while the bulk of the minor figures are little more than ciphers. But Barnard does succeed in making the farm a character in itself, with Goldman's astute use of angle and light and Tim Barker's sound design making it seem alternately consoling and sinister.

Moreover, she chillingly conveys the pain and fear that abuse victims continue to feel long after they have escaped their tormentors. She is admirably served in this regard by Wilson and Creed-Miles (who seems to have learnt much about acting with her eyes from mother Samantha Morton) , but her own research clearly pays dividends in setting the tone, which also seeps into the way in which Joe struggles to cope with his own role in his sister's torment. Yet Barnard leaves one aspect of the situation unexplored, as there is no sign (outside of some photographs) of her mother. She is listed in the closing crawl as Susan (Una McNulty), but there is no sense of her part in proceedings or in her fate. Perhaps she slipped through in the edit. But the passing unfavourable mention of her at the auction leaves a number of questions unanswered.

The aforementioned Ellie Kendrick takes on a very different role in Daniel Fitzsimmons's feature bow, Native. Drawing on influences as different as the Book of Genesis, the works of Samuel Beckett and the isolationist extremism of North Korean society, Fitzsimmons and co-scenarist Neil Atkinson follow the lead of Andrei Tarkovsky in Solaris (1975) in using science-fiction to examine such basic human themes as isolation, grief, resistance to change and the futility of existence. At times, the dialogue sounds florid, while the setting is consistently undermined by the budgetary restrictions. But this is a bold piece of film-making by the Liverpool-based duo, who manage to make the beach at Formby seem positively ethereal.

Dispatched from the Hive at the heart of their dying world, Cane (Rupert Graves) and Eva (Ellie Kendrick) are on a mission to monitor and either colonise or destroy a planet that has been detected in distant space. Having been put through a series of telepathy tests by their controllers, Delin (Daniel Brocklebank) and Matilda (Pollyanna McIntosh), the travellers bid farewell to their respective partners, Awan (Leanne Best) and Seth (Joe Macaulay). But, while they have been chosen for their compatibility, Cane finds it hard to make a connection with Eva and confides his concerns to Awan during their regular communications.

During one link-up, Awan reveals that she is pregnant and expecting four children. But he seems more excited by the prospect of interpreting the signal picked up from their target planet, which sounds a lot like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. He finds the pulses curiously hypnotic and beautiful, but Awan warns him to keep his mind on his job and urges him to find a way to get along with Eva. Seth has a similar message for Eva, when she reports that Cane is forever listening to the transmission and even seems moved by it.

When not working with computer pads that project holographic images on to the air, Cane and Eva exercise, consume food from unappetising grey pouches and undergoing hibernation in a transparent pod. While touching his toes, however, Cane experiences a crippling pain that appears sympathetic to the agony that overtakes Awan as she loses her offspring and dies a bloody death. He informs Eva of his loss, but she seems icily indifferent and reminds Cane of the need to concentrate when performing his tasks.

Unable to sleep, Cane wanders around the ship listening repeatedly to snippets of the signal. Eva asks Seth for advice on how to stop him from becoming morose and he urges her to keep him busy and focused on the task entrusted to him. But, while she engages him in mind games, Cane struggles to concentrate and spends his alone time trying to summon someone new to talk to back at the Hive. He also fashions a ribbon pendant to wear around his neck and generates such intense feeling while playing the signal at full volume that Eva involuntarily vomits on waking from stasis and she suggests that he powers down for a while, as she is becoming worried about his mental state.

Puzzled when Cane asks her whether she likes the food and aggrieved when he builds a sanctum and forbids her to enter, Eva contacts Seth. He promises that her companion's behaviour is being monitored, but suggests that she distances herself from him outside their shared tasks, as they don't want her to be contaminated by his refusal to conform. However, she finds his emotionality exhausting and wishes he would snap out of his mourning and carry out his duties rather than carving her primitive representations of the male and female form on shards of broken glass. She is particularly peeved when he takes her turn in stasis and cuts up his clothing because he is starting to feel like an individual. However, when she rejects his request for physical intimacy, Cane attempts to hang himself and Eva begs Seth for help in controlling him.

Eva ties Cane down on his bed and is taken aback when Seth orders her to terminate him at the conclusion of the mission. As she knows she will need his assistance to launch the ship, she fears that she is being sacrificed to keep the rogue individual out of the Hive. Cane sleeps and sees himself wandering along the dunes and the tideline and he wakes with a start when Seth appears to inform him that he is a liability who will not be tolerated. He tells Eva about the dream, but she insists that he devotes his energies to helping her land the craft and unleash the virus that has been designed to wipe out the inhabitants of the planet.

Fascinated by data gleaned from their hosts, Cane uses a piece of broken glass to cut into the scar tissue at the top of his spinal column and remove an implant. This action causes Eva pain in the same part of her own body and she wonders what he is doing. She runs through the ship to find him attempting to abort the mission in the payload. Countermanding his order, Eva incapacitates Cane and puts him into hibernation. Clambering out of their craft, she goes to explore Earth and is taken by the semblance of structure and order she witnesses. She is also moved by the affectionate way in which people interact. But Seth urges her to resist debilitating emotions and focus on her task.

Eva latches on to a suitable target (Chiara D'Anna) and follows her into a block of flats. However, the woman puts up a fight and Eva feels guilty on stabbing her to death with what looks like a biro. She presses a device into her neck to take a body sample and returns to the ship trembling with the sensation of having to resort to violence. Seth exhorts her to remain resolute, but she goes to see Cane in his pod. He realises that she has had an epiphany and joins her in the hold, as Seth orders her to wipe out humanity so that Earth can be colonised. Instead, however, she accepts the piece of glass that Cane offers to her and makes an incision in her neck. She helps him neutralise the virus and then joins him on the planet surface. Passing an upturned shopping trolley and a whitewashed wall covered in graffiti, they admit to being scared. But they press on.

No cinematic genre takes itself as deadly seriously as sci-fi and this is a particularly earnest example of the form. All concerned should be commended for their commitment to the concept and for the courage to end the story at such a potentially intriguing point. But anyone unable or unwilling to buy into the fictional universe concocted by Fitzsimmons and Atkinson is quickly going to be alienated by its hermitic detachment and by the empty pomposity of the discourse, much of which is confined to voiceover. Maybe those more attuned to sagas set in galaxies far, far away will find it all riveting.

It's still possible to applaud the efforts of Kendrick and Graves, who come into their own as they begin to respond to their free will. Moreover, Jon Revell's functional hexagonal interiors, the atmospheric lighting of cinematographers Nick Gillespie and Billy J. Jackson, and the twinkling visual effects devised by Justin Fleming and Colin J. Smith are admirable. Fitzsimmons also directs with flair, although he struggles to sustain the claustrophobic tension, while the whited out facial close-ups used during the exchanges with the Hive rapidly lose their novelty value. So, even though it often feels more like a lost episode of Blake's Seven than a companion piece to Duncan Jones's Moon (2009), this has the narrative and aesthetic intelligence to suggest Fitzimmons might achieve bigger things with a sharper script and increased funding.

The cult surrounding Bruce Lee has seen him almost deified by his devoted followers. But not even the most rabid fan of the founder of Jeet Kune Do will want to see George Nolfi's stupefyingly awful insult to Lee's memory, Birth of the Dragon. Inspired by Michael Dorgan's article, `Bruce Lee's Toughest Fight', and purportedly recreating the famous 1964 showdown between Lee and Shaolin monk Wong Jack Man, Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson's screenplay is a mass of myth and misinformation that is made all the more deplorable by its focus on a fictional Caucasian character, whose romantic entanglements prompt an alliance of convenience that would have seemed risibly clichéd in a 1930s horse opera. Saddled with a culturally patronising score and fight choreography better suited to a video game, this is a cinematic pleonasm.

Opening in Henan Province in 1963, Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) brings shame upon his temple by losing his temper during a bout against Tai Chi grandmaster Wang Lian (Wang Xi'an). As a consequence, he is dispatched to San Francisco to perform a penance by washing dishes in the Chinatown restaurant owned by his cousin. Nearby, Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) is causing controversy by teaching martial arts to Chinese and Americans alike. Moreover, he is showing off his skills in cheaply made movies that are shot on the street using loose ends of film stock.

One of the cast members is new student Billy McKee (Billy Magnussen), who has learnt how to use his fists while defending himself against his brutish father. He engages Lee in a playful bout that gets out of hand when McKee allows Lee to get into his head and cause him to lose focus. As they chat in the alley behind the school, Lee reminds McKee that a chip on the shoulder will always prove a hindrance in a fight. Meanwhile, gambling student Vinnie Wei (Simon Yin) falls foul of Triad enforcer Tony Yu (Ron Yuan) over an unpaid debt to Auntie Blossom (Jin Xing). But Lee comes to his rescue with a few flying fists leaving Yu's henchmen clutching their guts on the floor.

Wei and McKee work at a Chinese laundry and the latter falls for waitress Xiulan (Jingjing Qu) while making a delivery at the China Gate. She is closely monitored by her boss and told not to speak to strangers. But McKee gives her some baseball magazines to help her improve her English. He also goes to the docks to meet Wong off the boat and gives him a ride on the back of his motorbike to the restaurant where he displays remarkable dexterity juggling a plate. McKee tells Lee that Wong has arrived in town and he confides in buddy Frankie Chen (Terry Chen) that he is afraid that Wong has been sent from China to discredit his style of fighting and that he will have to fight him in order to keep taking American pupils.

Having given Xiulan an English grammar book that gets her into trouble with Auntie Blossom (who threatens to send her to a brothel if she steps out of line again), McKee takes Wong to see the Golden Gate Bridge. He is abashed when Wong reminds him that kung fu should be about self-discipline and spiritual growth rather than macho posturing. Indeed, McKee is so touched by Wong's humility when he takes tea in his rooms that he regards his mission to restore the balance to his soul to be nobler than Lee's bid to bring martial arts to the masses by showcasing them in films and television. Thus, while he recognises the panache of Lee's style in a demonstration with karate champion Vince Miller (Darren E. Scott), McKee is dismayed when Lee spots Wong in the arena and offers him out for a fight so that he can prove the superiority of his technique. However, Wong cautions Lee that his arrogance is holding him back, as kung fu has to come from the soul and not the ego.

McKee is disappointed that Wong refuses Lee's challenge and insists that he can teach him nothing until he has a better knowledge of himself. Following a late-night date with Xiulan (who climbs out of her dormitory to pray at a temple and learn baseball in a playground), McKee asks Wong to help him liberate her from Auntie Blossom. Accepting that McKee has a cause to fight for, Wong teaches him that knowing oneself and one's enemy is the secret of kung fu success. He also agrees to fight Lee when Auntie Blossom offers to release Xiulan if the bout goes ahead so that she can cash in on the betting action. Wong sends McKee to arrange the terms of the contest and Lee consents to it taking place before a handful of witnesses in a waterfront warehouse.

Anguished by the fact that Xiulan refuses to leave without her sisters in servitude, McKee communes with Wong on the night before the fight. The monk concedes that Lee is the future of kung fu and he fears that it will be cheapened by becoming a fad. But he is also concerned that Lee will suffer unless he has the humility to be reborn. Across the city, Lee shows no signs of doubt, as he tells Chen that Wong is going to take a whooping.

As 24 November 1964 arrives, guitars ramp up on the soundtrack and a shirtless, six-packed Lee faces off against the saffron-robed Wong. The action cuts between slow-motion long shots and stylised close-ups, while blur-fisted superimpositions alternate with seething Lee taunts and composed Wong retorts. Faced with a fury of swinging blows, Wong runs up a pillar and flips over Lee's head, as the shutter speeds flicker to convey the pace of the combat. It's all very slick, but there isn't a shred of tension or kinetic power in either the fight choreography, the camera movement or the editing, as Lee grits his teeth and bellows before each new assault and Wong remains impassive in his evasion. But, following leaps from a staircase and an exchange that leaves Wong on the floor and about to launch into the kick he used against Wang Lian, the pair realise their honour has been served and they bow with renewed respect.

Auntie Blossom is furious that there is no definitive result, as she has bets to cash. Rival mobster Wing Lo (Vincent Cheng) and his son, Sonny (Vanness Wu), are equally animated and order her to force one of the duo to concede defeat. She informs McKee that Xiulan will be sold into prostitution unless he declares a winner and his dilemma persuades Lee and Wong to join forces to help McKee when he blunders into the China Gate before lunchtime service to rescue his beloved. He gets turfed into the street. But Lee and Wong stroll into the kitchen and dispatch a clutch of henchmen in a cartoonish fight sequence that is followed by a weightier encounter on the second floor. However, even though Lee has his abdomen shredded by sharpened knuckle dusters, he prevails and joins the gyrating Wong on the next level, as two more thugs appear brandishing swords and axes.

This pair are dispensed with in double quick time, with McKee appearing in time to knockout the one who pulls a gun. Lee and Wong burst into Auntie Blossom's room and demand the release of all the girls and an end to sexual enslavement in Chinatown. Lo accepts the terms, although his son tries to pull a weapon to avenge the fact that Lee had broken his leg years before in the old country. But he is dumped on the seat of his pants and the newfound buddies leave in triumph.

Lee comes to visit McKee in hospital and confides that he won the fight because he discovered the limitations of his style and the folly of his empty ambitions. Thus, instead of becoming a star, he now intends to become a legend and he owes this realisation to Wong. He boards his boat for China after accepting McKee's verdict that he had won the fight because he had taught Lee a valuable lesson and concluded his penance in the process. Wong claims to be content that Lee will bring kung fu to the world, but jokes that he will be back to kick his butt if he does it a disservice.

Closing captions reveal that Lee changed his style as a result of the showdown and introduced Jeet Kune Do in July 1969. But facts are otherwise at a premium in this sloppily scripted speculation (for example, Lee was based in Oakland not Frisco during this period). The decision to view Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man through a subplot involving a charmless fictional cipher is baffling and it's compounded by the inertia of Billy Magnussen's performance.

Philip Ng and Xia Yu are more convincing as the pugnacious Lee and the serene Wong. But their dialogue has a fortune cookie ring that similarly blights H. Scott Salinas and Reza Safinia's pastiche score, while the overriding sense of phoniness spills over into David Brisbin's production design and Aieisha Li's costumes, which almost go out of their way to avoid feeling authentically 1960s.

Amir Mokri's photography is glossily proficient, but it feels as fussy as Joel Viertel's editing during the fight sequences. Director George Nolfi studied philosophy at New College on a Marshall Scholarship in the late 1980s and it feels mean-spirited to be so negative, especially after he performed so creditably with his Matt Damon-starring debut, The Adjustment Bureau (2011). But this misfires on so many levels that it has to be taken to task.

This week's Dochouse presentation alights on a perennially contentious topic, as Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra's A Suitable Girl examines the pressures placed on young Indian women to find husbands. Yet, while it challenges the subcontinent's entrenched socio-patriarchal conventions, this poignant exposé of the slow pace of change in the face of rigid tradition also considers the pain endured by the families of the brides-to-be, as they face the prospect of losing their daughters. But, by failing to profile somebody who has consciously opted out of the matrimonial race, the co-directors draw attention to the narrow perameters of their three-year study.

Following a montage of home movies, over which a mother laments that the Indian custom that women leave the family home forever when they get married, we land in Bhayandar on the outskirts of Mumbai to see 30 year-old pre-school teacher Dipti Admane scouring the marital want ads with her parents, Sneha and Nandkishore. She has been seeking a husband for three years. But her weight has proved an issue and she is beginning to despair of ever finding a match.

Across the city, 25 year-old Ritu Taparia is less concerned about conforming to type. Having been given permission to study by her father, Anup, she has secured a prestigious job in the risk analysis department of Ernst & Young. However, her mother Seema is a marriage consultant and she is becoming increasingly determined to pair Ritu off, as spinsterhood beyond a certain age is widely considered a social stigma.

Meanwhile, in Delhi, Amrita Soni is facing the prospect of bidding farewell to her party lifestyle in order to marry Keshav Jhanwar, who has promised to let her keep working in the family firm if they relocate to his hometown of Nokha, some 400 miles to the north in Rajasthan. Amrita's mother is saddened by the fact she will be moving so far away, but accepts that this is the way things are done in India.

Back in Bhayandar, Dipti attends a Swayanwar meet-and-greet session and is underwhelmed by the two divorcees and a bachelor who agree to negotiate with her parents. The organiser suggests that men are put off by her physique and Seema concurs that men want beautiful, soft-spoken women who know their place. She revels in making matches and clearly makes a good living, as many of her clients are extremely wealthy and will pay whatever it takes to ensure a good union. Certainly no expense has been spared where Amrita's wedding is concerned and we see drummers and brass bands serenading Keshav as he arrives for the ceremony. Bride and groom look nervous in their finery and go through the motions of the ritual intent on putting on a good show. But her parents look sombre and Amrita becomes tearful while sitting on the dais with her new partner, who doesn't seem to have a clue how to console or reassure her.

While Dipti meets a young man who can barely bring himself to make eye contact, Seema interviews actress Neha Marda about the kind of man she wants. She chats happily to Ritu about macroeconomics and Neha jokes that Seema must find it easy finding matches for her daughter. But she complains that it's a source of consternation to her and Ritu lowers her eyes on picking up the frustration in her mother's voice. Dipti remains more optimistic, however, and uses a shared birthday with her diffident suitor to send him a text. However, he doesn't reply and she has to take another rejection with a bravely smiling shrug.

Amrita was less willing to hide her emotions on the long train journey north with her beau. But, nine months on, she shows Khurana and Mundhra the saris that her father-in-law expects her to wear around his house and she reveals that she has to keep her Western clothes hidden. While she acclimatises to her new situation, Dipti learns that she has been rejected again and she feels hurt in spite of parental reassurance that the decision was based on status rather than physical attraction. She takes to her bed and her mother admits that she doesn't know how to help her because she is obsessed with being wanted.

Seema works in tandem with Janardan, a face reader and astrologer who rejects the three candidates she has chosen for Ritu. When they attend a wedding, she keeps trying to push her daughter into flirting with eligible young men. But she isn't interested in making an exhibition of herself and Seema ticks her off for putting her career ahead of her happiness. By contrast, Amrita has postponed working in the factory alongside Keshav to help mother-in-law Tara Devi look after her ailing husband. Keshav speaks of his wife with bashful affection and reveals that a bond had existed between them since school. But there is no one on the horizon for Dipti and Ritu, with the former having professional photographs taken to increasing her chances on an online marriage site and the latter resorting to prayers after the replies from a newspaper advertisement prove disappointing and gossips begin wondering whether Seema has lost her touch if she can't find a suitor for her own daughter.

Then, out of the blue, Dipti meets Karthik Thiyagarajan from Bangalore online and he quickly asks him to marry her. Moreover, Ritu accepts a proposal from Aditya Bagree, who has spent the last 18 months working in Dubai. He admits on camera that he wishes he was a European who could pick a bride after he had lived a bit, but he concedes that Ritu is a decent catch. She looks down at such a Prince Charleseque lack of gallantry, but insists in voiceover that she is content with the match. Dipti is more enthusiastic, as Karthik seems to have developed feelings for her during their long-distance conversations and she seems genuinely upset to see him off at the station after setting a date.

While Amrita visits her family in Delhi, Karthik comes back to see Dipti and her grin is bigger than Toni Collette's when she gets engaged to the South African swimmer in Muriel's Wedding (1994). He has brought her early birthday presents and she is charmed by the giant card he has drawn for her. They hold hands when they go for a walk and she seems blissfully happy. Meanwhile, Amrita hooks up with her best friend, Nishu, and blushes when she asks when she is going to have babies.

Having started taking cookery lessons, Ritu also appears pleased to have found someone who shares her interest in economics and hopes they can have worthwhile discussions. Her parents learn their dance steps for the big day, while Vansh the wedding planner keeps them abreast of his ideas. Seema confides her relief that she has sorted Ritu's future. But she is now counting down the days to losing her and Dipti's mother feels equally emotional, as friends and neighbours come to say their goodbyes and Dipti starts packing. Ritu also gets emotional when she finds the baby book that Seema had kept and she feels a pang at leaving the nest.

Very different amounts have been spent on Dipti and Ritu's weddings. But Dipti and Karthik look excited to be together, while Ritu and Aditya do what is expected of them. Seema looks on with pride, as the ceremony progresses, while Dipti's father sobs in entrusting his only child to a man he barely knows. Mournful piano plays on the soundtrack, as the couples embark upon their new lives together.

Back in Nokha, Amrita has become used to being a wife and accepts Keshav's decision to keep her at home. As a new mother, she is proud to serve him, but dislikes the notion of losing her identity and wishes their guests would use her name and treat her as an individual and not a chattel. A caption informs us that Ritu had more luck, as Aditya is happy for her to work with him and they are making a go of life in Dubai. Seema flies out to see them every couple of months, while Dipti speaks to her parents on the phone every day. But she is settled with Karthik, who has bought some land to build her a new house.

Given that Dipti, Ritu and Amrita end up with decent, compatible men of vaguely the same age, it could be argued that this vérité snapshot offers an unrepresentative view of arranged marriage in modern India. Even their parents have remained together, although the mothers are not afforded an opportunity to recall their own experiences as new brides. This might have been instructive, as might an insight into Amrita's developing relationship with her mother-in-law and the changing nature of her position within the household after Kehsav's father died and she had a daughter of her own.

A discussion of those matches that end in disappointment and divorce (not to mention abuse and misery) would also have been useful. But Khurana and Mundhra are keener to pick up hinted revelations and telltale bits of body language than explore wider issues like the status of women and the social conventions that underpin the marital system. Yet where they excel is in empathetically highlighting how a daughter's departure impacts upon the parents and siblings who are left behind, as, even though contact is retained, these relationship will never be the same again.

Arriving in cinemas to provide a little Olympic solace to those who have been burning the midnight oil watching the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, James Erskine's The Ice King joins Craig Gillespie's biopic, I, Tonya, in revealing that agony behind the ecstasy of excelling at a brutally demanding sport like figure skating. John Curry was the first British man to win Olympic gold in this discipline, although Madge Syers and Jeannette Altwegg had triumphed in 1908 and 1952 respectively. Yet, rather than being able to build on his success, Curry found it difficult to make the transition from competition to icecapade, especially as he was experiencing so much torment in his private life. The odds were certainly stacked against him. But, as he did in Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist (2014), Erskine suggests that Curry may well have been his own worst enemy.

Over a credit sequence shot of a silhouetted figure gliding on the ice, John Curry recalls how he was allowed to take up figure skating by his conservative Brummie parents because it was a sport and much less camp than dancing. Yet, while he relished the challenge of competing, he was determined to meld athleticism and artistry in his bid to become the best skater in the world.

One of the first women directors in American television sport, Meg Streeter Lauck got to know Curry when he arrived in New York in 1971 to room with her mother, Nancy. She recalls him claiming in a letter that England had betrayed him and she explains how he was still struggling to deal with the fact that his engineer father, Joseph, had prevented his wife, Rita, from enrolling their son in ballet classes. On the ice, however, he had quickly realised that he could skate to music and fulfil his dancing ambitions.

We see Curry performing to Adolphe Adam's `Le Corsaire' and photos of him amassing a fine collection of cups. But he found it tough to accept that the techniques that had made him so successful as a juvenile were frowned upon in adult competition and a clip from a BBC Man Alive documentary on homosexuality (which was still illegal in 1960s Britain) gives a clue as to why. Nevertheless, Curry fell in love with Swiss skater Heinz Wirz, who remembers being swept away on seeing him compete in Prague in 1966. Wirz moved to Britain to train with Curry and they wrote every day they were apart. However, they drifted apart after Curry's father committed suicide and he was forced to take a job in a supermarket between training sessions at the Richmond Ice Rink.

Inspired by Canadian legend Donald Jackson, Curry reworked his routine to George Bizet's `Habanera' and persuaded Ed Moser to sponsor him in Colorado under the tutelage of coach, Carlo Fassi. However, Fassi's widow, Christa, recalls how reluctant he was to work with Curry, who had a reputation for perfectionism and prickliness. But, driven by his desire to bring skating to the masses, Curry conquered a tricky routine to win silver at the European championships in 1974. He appeared on Blue Peter and Michael Parkinson's chat show, where he complained about the corruption of Iron Curtain judges and the fact that Soviet rivals like Vladimir Kovalev lacked musicality and grace. His stratagem paid off two years later, when a Czech judge broke ranks and Curry took European gold with his interpretation of Ludwig Minkus's `Don Quixote'.

Now engaging in scream therapy to help cope with his nerves, Curry carried the flag at the Innsbruck Olympics of 1976, as well as the hopes of a nation. As ex-champion-turned-commentator Dick Button suggests, he also knew this was his only chance to generate the publicity and momentum to launch his own ice dance company. Thus, he threw himself into routines that had BBC commentator Alan Weeks reaching for superlatives. Fellow skater Robin Cousins declared Curry's performance perfection and he was able to enjoy the medal ceremony all the more with the knowledge that his mother was in the crowd.

But, no sooner had Curry become a celebrity than the press began to delve into his private life. Nancy Streeter and skater Cathy Foulkes remember the media frenzy and, over footage of his routine to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's `Scheherazade', we hear Curry describe how he was outed by a journalist who had conveniently forgotten the meaning of the term `off the record'. Yet, instead of a public backlash, Curry received supportive letters about his skating rather than his sexuality. Moreover, he won the coveted Sports Personality of the Year title and was hailed for his social courage in demanding to be accepted on his own terms.

Recognising the need to cash-in on his fame, Curry signed a deal for his Theatre of Skating to appear at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End. Lorna Brown reflects on the thrill of being part of the company and the power and beauty of Curry's duet with Foulkes on Claude Debussy's `L'Après-midi d'un faune'. But there were tensions behind the scenes, as Curry had embarked upon an affair with Ron Alexander, a mediocre skater who proved highly unpopular with co-stars unaware of the S&M hold he had over Curry. Friends speculate on the possibility that this consensual abuse fed Curry's sense of shame at being gay, while also wondering about the effect that a 10-day absence from the show had on his commitment and confidence after he was badly beaten in a mugging.

Having taken some time to consider his options, Curry resurfaced in New York in 1980. We see him rehearsing Jacob Gode's `Tango, Tango' with choreographer Peter Martins and partner Jo Jo Starbuck and ballet supremo William Whitener remembers the show at the Minskoff Theatre taking Broadway by storm. During the run, however, Curry fell during a spin and sat sobbing disconsolately on the stage. He retreated to the gay resort of Fire Island and producer Elva Corrie recalls how depressed he was when she went to find him. She helped him find backers in Colorado and producer David Spungen notes how Curry's spirits perked up after Nathan Birch joined the company and they began skating routines choreographed by the likes of Eliot Feld and Twyla Tharp.

However, Curry could be a tough taskmaster and developed a reputation for being arrogant, moody and rude to his female skaters. He often found himself at odds with producers and backers, as he wanted to showcase his genius, while they were more interested in revenue-generating gimmicks. In Tokyo in 1984, for example, Curry fumed at the presence of advertising billboards around the arena and the fact that the audience's reaction to routines like `Trio' (which he had choreographed to Erik Satie) was being measured on a clapometer. Spungen admits that Curry was so miserable at being seen by many as a skating novelty act that he feared he would do something drastic. Wirz suggests that he might have been more able to deal with his demons if he had found a steady partner. But he preferred thrilling lovers to dependable companions, even though news had started to break about a new epidemic that was impacting upon the gay community.

Hoping that Symphony on Ice at the Royal Albert Hall would put him back on top, Curry arrived in London with renewed vigour in April 1984. Technician Kevin Kossi remembers the problems that the crew faced in building a rink within a week, but concedes that publicity about the adverse conditions helped make the show a hit, especially when items like `Burn' (which had been scored by Jean-Michel Jarre) proved so dynamic. The show transferred to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where ice problems caused the opening night to be postponed. But Gioachino Rossini's `William Tell Overture' (which is shown in a rare piece of amateur footage) brought the house down and Curry was so exhilarated that he asked Corrie if he could retire and concentrate on choreography. However, with the company deep in debt and audiences flocking to see Curry rather than his acolytes, he was forced to carry on performing and his mood grew increasingly despondent.

By the time he reached Copenhagen later in the year, Curry was close to rock bottom. Detesting the venue, he contracted an injury that Spungen feels was feigned and only returned for the show at the Berghen Opera House. We see amateur footage of the exquisite routine choreographed by Eliot Feld to Maurice Ravel's `Moonskate', which Foulkes, Birch, Corrie and Lauck claim was a dance of longing and pain that was so personal that it prompted tears on stage. But, perhaps the emotion was caused by the fact that Curry knew he would never skate again and that he had come so close to fulfilling his personal and professional ambitions without actually doing so.

As Curry contemplated his future, the AIDS crisis sparked a homophobic backlash across the United States and Whitener remembers how scared he felt as the disease crept closer to his own circle of friends. Wirz shared this sense of trepidation and remembers travelling to Liverpool to see Curry play Buttons in pantomime and being told in the Atlantic Hotel that his friend was HIV+. During this run of Cinderella, Curry also confided in his mother and noted that their telephone conversation was probably their most intimate.

Erskine opts against chronicling the media reaction to Curry's situation and, instead, leaps forward to 1990, when Birch invited him to work on The Next Ice Age. In addition to advising on the routines, Curry also designed costumes for `On the Beautiful Danube', which used the music of Johann Strauss II, and we see grainy footage of his farewell performance with Birch, Tim Murphy and Shaun McGill. Three decades later, Birch would restage the piece and Corrie and Lauck state that many owe their careers to Curry's courage and that the current crop of ice dance companies are his legacy.

As Rita remembers the last days she spent with her son after he moved back to Birmingham, we hear Freddie Fox reading a letter that Curry had written to Foulkes to reassure her that he had no regrets and had found an inner peace after leading an extraordinary life. The film ends with an interview extract, in which Curry is asked whether whizzing around on ice has any validity when others are surgeons or inventors. Reining in any frustration at the futility of the question, he graciously states that making people feel emotion is a privilege and that he is happy to have brought them pleasure.

Drawing on Bill Jones's book, Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry, this is a typically astute sporting insight from James Erskine, who has pretty much cornered this part of the actuality market. Coming on the heels of Tony Timberlake's one-man Edinburgh show, Looking for John (2017), it plays on the notion of Curry being a troubled soul whose personality was forged during a frustrating, if never entirely demoralising childhood. But Erskine refuses to depict Curry as a victim and implies that he caused many of his own problems with both his temperament and his refusal to pander to the public demand for profitable spectacle.

More importantly, however, Erskine and editor Steve Parkinson present Curry as a soulful artist in making magnificent use of archive footage, whose survival seems both miraculous and peculiar in an age when so much of life is lived on camera. Perhaps more might have been made of the extent to which Curry's submissive nature explains his self-destructive streak, while it might have been instructive to learn more about the connection between homosexuality and both figure skating and ice dancing during this period. Similarly, Erskine could have dwelt longer on the problems of competitors reinventing themselves as performers and needing to find something to replace the adrenaline rush of defeating rivals as well as wowing the onlookers. But this is an eminently sympathetic portrait of a skating pioneer who defied social, sporting and artistic convention.