Dalliance
Thursday, streaming on Paramount Plus
Everyone likes to think their parents’ lives began when they came along — it’s almost impossible to imagine them as fully formed people before you arrived.
They’re “mum” and “dad” and sure, occasionally they’ll let slip a story about the before-times, or you’ll peep a saturated polaroid of them in a bikini, floating in Hong Kong harbour (I see you, Mum!), but this other life has never felt accessible to you — until now.
From father/son creators John and Dan Edwards (the elder is responsible for The Secret Life Of Us, Love My Way and Tangle), it stars Hugo Weaving, Georgie Parker, Heather Mitchell and David Wenham as a group of old friends in their 60s who reconnect after something happens that brings them back together.
I can’t think of another series that has chosen to centre this age group quite like this — and it feels as though we’re getting a side-door entrance into the lives of our parents’ generation.
Here’s the thing that really spun me out: the messy lives of these great characters, drawn back into one another’s lives after something happens in the first episode, don’t feel too dissimilar to my own.
There’s this sense that the “adults” in our lives have somehow got it all together, but peeping this, you get the distinct feeling that at 60-plus, they’re still just figuring it out.
John Edwards said he and the show’s writers (who are of a similar age) were “astonished by how immature we still were”.
“We didn’t really feel any different from how we’d felt in our 30s or 40s,” he said, and honestly — what a relief.
It gives me comfort to know there are still plenty of gloriously, messy, complicated times ahead — bring it on.
The Airport Chaplain
Wednesday, streaming on SBS On Demand
Wait, Hugo Weaving’s popping up in this too? He sure is, and he’s front and centre, playing the airport chaplain at a busy Melbourne airport.
That’s a real job? It is! And in this, The Pitt’s Shabana Azeez is Weaving’s new boss. She’s got him in her crosshairs as she attempts to pull the airport out of the red and get it profitable again — surely the ageing man with the unexplainable job is expendable, right?
Maybe not.
Real talk: on paper this sounds dull as dishwater, but it’s terrific; beautifully written, full of heart, and with some outstanding performances from Weaving and Azeez.
The onscreen double act we didn’t know we needed.
Tampa: The Turning Point
Wednesday, streaming on ABC iview
This three-part series looks at the eight-day crisis that unfolded after a boatload of asylum seekers landed in Australian waters in 2001, sparking a political stand-off. John Howard, the Tampa’s Norwegian Captain and some of the people onboard speak in this — don’t miss it.
Possession
Thursday, streaming on Binge
This British supernatural thriller, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jonny Lee Miller, has been getting lots of buzz in the UK. It centres around a lawyer who travels to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim, only to unearth dark family secrets.
The Whisper Man
Friday, streaming on Netflix
Based on the novel by Alex North, this film stars Adam Scott and Robert De Niro as estranged father and son who team up after Scott’s character’s son is abducted. Is the mythical Whisper Man responsible? This looks scary as heck.
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