What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

The Thursday Murder Club

British mysteries don’t get any cozier than this adaptation of a page-turning bestseller about a retirement home resembling Downton Abbey whose residents investigate the apparent murder of the place’s co-owner — which frees the nasty surviving owner (Broadchurch's David Tennant, 54) to sell the place for condos and boot everybody out. And casts don’t get any starrier. Helen Mirren, 80, Ben Kingsley, 81, Pierce Brosnan, 72, and Celia Imbrie, 73, have a blast playing the amateur detectives, as does Gosford Park’s Richard E. Grant, 68, as a shady associate of the deceased. Chris Columbus, 66 (Home Alone, two Harry Potters, Mrs. Doubtfire) expertly directs. It’s not chock-full of pulse-pounding action, but it does offer chuckles, ace acting, satisfying scenes of grownups outwitting the condescending young, and a moving subplot about Mirren’s character (a retired MI6 secret-service official) and her husband, a bestselling author (Jonathan Pryce, 78). He's slipping into Alzheimer’s — yet he’s instrumental in solving one mystery. And then there’s a twist about a second murder!

Watch it: The Thursday Murder Club, Aug. 28 on Netflix

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Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

The Map That Leads to You

Boy, do sourpuss critics hate this shamelessly tear-jerking rom-com by triple-Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallström, 79 (My Life As a Dog, The Cider House Rules,) about a type A woman (Madelyn Cline) traveling through Europe who meets a free-spirited cutie (KJ Apa) charting a peripatetic course following his grandpa’s old European travel journey (and harboring a secret). But audiences made it Prime Video’s smash No. 1 hit. 

Watch it: The Map That Leads to You, on Prime Video 

Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month

New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ The Roses , R

Anglophiles might enjoy seeing Brit legends Olivia Colman, 51, and Benedict Cumberbatch, 49, reading the phone book (remember those?). I would. Even better? Make them the unhappily married Ivy and Theo Rose, who overshare at couples therapy, armed with stinging dialogue. With a nod to 1989's cataclysmic marital comedy starring Michael Douglas, 80, and Kathleen Turner, 71, this contemporary outing feels fresh, sophisticated and loaded with delightful trigger warnings for anybody navigating a long and bumpy marriage. When Ivy’s culinary career (echoes of her role in The Bear) takes off and Theo’s architectural practice withers spectacularly on the vine, they can't politely navigate the conflict that just might burn down everything they’ve built together. Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg add zaniness as the Roses’ best friends, but it’s Colman and Cumberbatch at the top of their games, with a lively script and strong direction, that make The Roses so much more than a routine reboot. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Roses, Aug. 29 in theaters 

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⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ Eden , R

Imagine a real-life Lord of the Flies for grownups, with three cohorts of settlers trying to survive on an isolated, previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos in the 1930s. First to arrive is a German physician (Jude Law, 52) and his ailing wife (Vanessa Kirby). The doc’s philosophical back-to-nature writings inspire a WWI vet (Daniel Brühl) and his initially mousy wife (a riveting Sydney Sweeney) to build their own homestead for their young family in the harsh, unforgiving terrain. Then comes a pearl-necklace-wearing baroness (Ana de Armas) and her polyamorous entourage, with few survival skills and a foolhardy plan to build a luxury hotel. The fact-based film by Ron Howard, 71, occasionally dawdles, but he keeps pulling you back with all the narrative twists and lush cinematography. —Thom Geier

Watch it: Eden, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ Highest 2 Lowest, R

Spike Lee’s latest joint is a stylishly slick remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime drama High and Low starring Denzel Washington, 70, as an aging, financially over-leveraged music mogul who’s thrust into a moral dilemma when he learns his teenage son has been kidnapped for a $17 million ransom. When it turns out that the son of his chauffeur and childhood buddy (Jeffrey Wright, 59) was the one snatched by mistake, he debates whether to still pay the ransom. The fascinating ethical questions are marred by an overintrusively melodramatic score, and the nuanced storytelling retreats for some conventional and implausible chase scenes in the third act. But Washington is electric, as is rapper and novice actor A$AP Rocky as the shrewd kidnapper. —Thom Geier

Watch it: Highest 2 Lowest, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ Nobody 2, R

In tIn a by-the-numbers sequel to the 2021 surprise hit action comedy Nobody, Bob Odenkirk’s non-fully-retired ex-CIA assassin decides to take his family of four for a summer trip to a past-its-prime amusement park that he remembers from his youth with ex-FBI dad (Christopher Lloyd, 86). Turns out the place is overrun by violent baddies and crooked cops, led by a cackling crime boss played with over-the-top menace by Sharon Stone, 67. Odenkirk, 62, continues to channel John Wick and Taken-era Liam Neeson, 73, in the ultraviolent action scenes, while tossing in a bit of Clark Griswold from National Lampoon's Vacation between fights. And his onscreen wife (Gladiator's Connie Nielsen, 60) turns out to be an excellent markswoman. But too often this feels like a Ferris wheel ride that’s stuck in the same familiar circles. —Thom Geier

Watch it: Nobody 2, in theaters