It’s a cheery enough distraction, propped up by Beanie Feldstein’s game performance as the writer’s teenage alter ego, but its point of view on adolescent feminism and exploitation is a bit gauzy.ĭry Wind (TLA, 18) The title sounds unpromising, but Brazilian director Daniel Nolasco’s deliciously horny debut overcomes that. How to Build a Girl (Lionsgate, 15) Originally released only on Amazon Prime, Coky Giedroyc’s peppy film of Caitlin Moran’s bestselling semi-memoir is now available on a wider array of platforms. ![]() With Russell Crowe playing it to the hilt as a road rager gone rogue, it’s a shameless B-movie hoot. Unhinged (Altitude, 15) Briefly notable as the first major release to hit cinemas after the initial pandemic lockdown, this ripely ludicrous psycho-on-the-loose thriller is now available for home viewing, for anyone who fancies the romp without the risk. Female astronauts don’t just have to be role models any more. From 2018, see the nameless Mimarobe – an AI facilitator granted shifting powers of deception on a doomed luxury spacecraft to Mars – in the fascinating Swedish eco-sci-fi parable Aniara ( on the BFI Player), or Juliette Binoche’s deranged, sexually exploitative scientist in Claire Denis’s wild black-hole odyssey High Life (in the Mubi Library). It’s still European film-makers pushing women in space a little more daringly out there. Donning a spacesuit for the second time, after Jon Amiel’s 2003 cheesefest The Core, Hilary Swank has fared better in her slick, soapy Netflix series Away, which follows a similar arc to Proxima with rather more gloss. Last year saw Natalie Portman crash and burn as a PTSD-afflicted astronaut in the disappointing Lucy in the Sky ( on Sky Go). Her ferocious exploits in Alien and Aliens are both on Google Play how much further you want to delve into the diminishing franchise is your call. It took another decade for Sigourney Weaver to give women in space a somewhat steelier image, thanks to the enduring badassery of her redoubtable officer Ripley. It’s a long way from the less evolved space-hopping of Roger Vadim’s riotous Barbarella from 1968 (free to stream on Amazon Prime), in which Jane Fonda was nothing if not a good sport as a sparkly swimsuit-clad United Earth government rep sent to save humanity. ![]() Mixing grounded anxieties with cosmic wanderlust, Proxima recognises that feminist heroes can make human mistakes and reveal weaknesses en route to greatness. Winocour hasn’t written her as a colourless, real-life wonder woman. It’s a tough, heart-tearing conflict, played by Green with raw, vulnerable integrity as Sarah battles not just her daughter’s resentment but the cool condescension of the men on her mission. Green plays Sarah, an ambitious astronaut and single mother surprised to receive a last-minute invitation to join a European Space Agency mission to Mars – the realisation of a lifelong dream, but one that necessitates a year spent apart from her eight-year-old daughter Stella (the delightful Zélie Boulant). Now, VOD should serve as a reintroduction to a film that combines compelling space-station activity with a frank, straightforward feminist message. Proxima got a UK cinema release in July, but amid pandemic uncertainty never found the audience it deserved. ![]() A recent spate of films and TV series have redressed the balance, putting women at the centre of their stargazing narratives – few more stirringly than Proxima (multiple platforms), a superb astronaut character study from the French director Alice Winocour that gives Eva Green the role of her career. ![]() For too long in the movies – as in life – space exploration was presented as a boy’s realm: brave, lantern-jawed men soaring off to the final frontier while their wives waited and fretted on terra firma.
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