TV Highlights: Well-paced ‘Twelve’ and bittersweet ‘Best Years of a Life’

TV highlights of the week.

By HANNAH BROWN
'Best Years of a Life' (photo credit: Courtesy)
'Best Years of a Life'
(photo credit: Courtesy)
There is no shortage of crime/courtroom dramas on Netflix, but the Belgian series The Twelve is very good. It tells the story of the trial of a woman accused of murdering her child and her best friend, from both the point of view of the accused and the jurors, each of whom has some backstory that complicates their participation in the trial. Its well-paced plotting and succinct script reminds me of the best courtroom story lines from The Good Wife (which moved from Netflix to Amazon Prime Video, if you’re wondering where it went).
The Twelve passed my ultimate streaming test: More than 15 minutes passed before I checked the time. If I get completely absorbed in a drama for more than 10 minutes, that’s a very good sign.
If the series Tehran has gotten you in the mood for intelligent action movies, you might want to try Zero Dark Thirty, which is playing on Hot Cinema 2 on July 25 at 2:40 p.m. and which will become available on July 26 on Hot CinemaTime.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, whose film The Hurt Locker won the Best Picture Oscar in 2010, Zero Dark Thirty is a fictionalized account of how US forces tracked down and captured Osama Bin Laden. It stars Jessica Chastain in one of her best performances as Maya, an agent who won’t give up no matter how cold the trail gets. Of course, we know what happened to Bin Laden, but Bigelow is good at creating suspense about how they managed to find him, and it’s a story filled with twists.
Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan will be shown in this same series on Hot Cinema 2 on July 25 at 5:15 p.m. and will become available on July 26 on Hot CinemaTime. This is a film with an amazing opening showing the D-Day invasion, but it was really meant to be seen on the big screen. You can still enjoy its stellar cast, which includes Tom Hanks, Vin Diesel (before The Fast and the Furious), Adam Goldberg (before The Hebrew Hammer), Ted Danson (after Cheers), Paul Giamatti (before Billions) and Matt Damon.
Who can forget how beautiful Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant were in Claude Lelouch’s romantic A Man and a Woman, over 54 years ago? So it was with some trepidation that I went to see a follow-up film that revisits the characters in 2019, The Best Years of a Life, fearing it would be depressing.
It is bittersweet to be sure, but quite enjoyable. While the plot is wafer-thin, it’s fun to see these two actors, who are both somehow still attractive well into their 80s and seem to have a great time together exploring all their unfinished business from 1966. Even if watching a French film with Hebrew subtitles isn’t your cup of tea – or of vin blanc – you might want to tune in just to marvel at how these stars have held up.
The Best Years of a Life will be shown on July 24 at 10 p.m. on HOT Cinema 4; starting July 26 on Hot CinemaTime; and on July 31 at 10 p.m. on Yes 3, Yes VOD, Sting TV and Cellcom TV.
Swimming with Men, a gentle comedy which starts showing on Cellcom TV on July 30, is a predictable but sweet look at a stressed-out British man whose life is transformed when he joins a men’s synchronized swimming team. Directed by Oliver Parker, it features a great cast of English actors, including Rob Brydon, Jim Carter, Rupert Graves, Adeel Akhtar, Jane Horrocks and Daniel Mays. It’s utterly predictable from start to finish, but still fun. It’s based on a true story and there is also a French version of the same story, called Sink or Swim.
Danny’s Revolution (aka My Disease Our Revolution) by Nisan Katz is a documentary about a man diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease who fights the medical and pharmaceutical establishments to try to find an effective medication. It will be shown on July 29 at 9 p.m. on Yes Docu and will be available on Yes VOD and Sting TV.


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