Best films of the week
The Queen’s Corgi (2019) ✰✰✰ (Sky Cinema Premiere, 8.30am & 8.20pm) Premiere The Duke of Edinburgh (voiced by Tom Courtenay) buys a puppy as a present for the Queen (Julie Walters). Older pets Nelson (Colin McFarlane) and Margaret (Debra Stephenson) tolerate the young whippersnapper, Rex (Jack Whitehall), but fellow corgi Charlie (Matt Lucas) is incandescent with rage that he has been displaced as top dog. Following a disastrous state visit by US President Donald Trump (Jon Culshaw), Charlie lures Rex to his doom in the icy waters of St James’s Park Lake. Thankfully, the well-to-do corgi survives and a frozen, collarless Rex is taken to an animal shelter.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) ✰✰✰✰✰ (Channel 4, 9.30pm)
Hell hath no fury like a grief-stricken mother scorned in writerdirector Martin McDonagh’s blackly comic drama. It has been seven months since Angela Hayes was abducted, raped and murdered on her way home. The dead girl’s mother Mildred (Oscarwinner Frances McDormand) is infuriated by the lack of progress under police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). So, she rents three advertising hoardings on the outskirts of town and emblazons each billboard with a message aimed directly at the man responsible for apprehending the culprits. However, bigoted officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell, who also won an Oscar) reacts violently to Mildred’s public spat with his station. Impeccably scripted and blessed with a blistering lead performance from McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a truly remarkable film.