Binge-r #239: This Way Up + The Mosquito Coast

Sisters of Mercy: Aisling Bea (Aine) and Sharon Horgan (Shona) in This Way Up

THIS WAY UP S1

Streaming Service: Stan

Availability: All six episodes now streaming

The fierce, unpredictable bond between sisters finds its perfect screen form in this bittersweet British comedy “I’m not being sarc-y, I’m being sassy,” insists Aine (Aisling Bea), during what becomes an incredible awkward exit interview from the hospital she’s been in a following a nervous breakdown. “I’m going to punch you in the face in a minute,” replies her older sister, Shona (Sharon Horgan), while smiling at the nurse. Throughout this six-part comedy, which originally aired in 2019 and has a second season coming, Bea and Horgan play Irish siblings whose shared jokes spill out of teenage memories and a long history of loving mockery. They tell each other everything except what’s crucial, and then wonder why they’re falling short. It’s verging on the brilliant.

This Way Up was created by Bea, an Irish comic and actor who did her best playing opposite dual Paul Rudd’s in the 2019 Netflix series Living with Yourself [full review here], and it’s a terrific showcase for both her and Horgan, the co-creator of the acerbically funny Catastrophe [full review here]. Aine (pronounced Onya) has a non-stop line of banter that is balanced between the excruciating and the amusing, but you soon come to see how that’s essential to the balancing act she’s trying to maintain after leaving hospital and going back to the English language class where she’s an eccentric but committed teacher. The appreciation of mental health struggles is genuine.

The narrative deftly includes personal tangles, including an unexpected relationship opportunity for Shona and a London backdrop that acknowledges the street dynamics of Brexit. The most intriguing foil for Aine is Richard (The Crown’s Tobias Menzies), a stricken father to a French son he barely knows, Etienne (Dorian Grover), who reluctantly hires her as a home tutor – their exchanges in the first episode are so at odds that you’ll want to cover your eyes even as you judge their ultimately compatibility. Prepare yourself for Sorcha Cusack as Eileen, the duo’s mother, and some developments that you can see coming but still feel the impact of. This Way Up can be sarc-y, sassy, and a punch in the face.

Family Getaway: Justin Theroux (Allie) and Melissa George (Margot) in The Mosquito Coast

THE MOSQUITO COAST (Apple TV+, three episodes now streaming, new episode Friday): The nepotism isn’t an issue: Justin Theroux (The Leftovers) is the nephew of Paul Theroux, who wrote the 1981 novel about a contrarian inventor who take his family to Central America to escape American society that this vividly cinematic limited series is adapted from, but he’s actually the best thing in it. Theroux’s Allie Fox has a brilliant but wayward mind, so determined to defy a world he abhors that he’ll selfishly risk the life of his wife, Margot (Melissa George), and increasingly divided children, when they flee across the U.S. border into Mexico. The problem is, with multiple pursuers, that they never arrive anywhere – this is a thriller focused on escapes and not the underlying motivation. Peter Weir’s 1986 film, with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, reached an eruptive peak in their adopted home, which the show struggles to match. It nods to America’s contemporary divisions as well, but dances around where Allie comes from and what he’s previously done. Allie is defined by his convictions, but this version of The Mosquito Coast has too few.

NEWLY ADDED MOVIES

New on Netflix: Memo to my 15-year-old son: the remake of Child’s Play (2019, 89 minutes), the 1980s horror film about a possessed children’s doll named Chucky that builds a body count, is there to stream (everyone else, not so sure); Stowaway (2021, 117 minutes) is a sometimes baffling deep space melodrama about a NASA mission with an unplanned extra crew member featuring Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette.

New on Stan: Starring a perfectly matched Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, Secretary (2002, 112 minutes) is a seditious S&M black comedy about connection and need that knows its kink; 3.10 to Yuma (2007, 123 minutes) isn’t James Mangold’s best film, but it remains a solid western with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale as diametrically opposed frontier figures – the outlaw and the settler respectively – who forge a connection.

New on SBS on Demand: A breakthrough British filmmaker in the 1960s and one of Hollywood’s most enjoyable directors in the 1970s, Richard Lester had a great deal of fun with the familiar story of The Three Musketeers (1973, 103 minutes), putting together a period adventure with Faye Dunaway, Oliver Reed, Michael York, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, and Charlton Heston.

>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here to find out about Netflix’s exemplary period fantasy Shadow and Bone and Stan’s quirky sitcom Rutherford Falls.

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