Culture recs: Eddington, Hunting Wives, and More
What to watch this week, including a documentary about atomic bomb survivors and two very different takes on the American political divide
Atomic People
This month marks 80 years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 118,000 people instantly and many thousands more in the coming months. Directed by Benedict Sanderson and Megumi Inman, this wrenching documentary tells the story of the survivors, known as the Hibakusha. Now in their 80s, 90s, and beyond, they recall, with harrowing, darkly poetic clarity, the images of Aug. 6 and 9, 1945. “It was a scene from hell,” says one survivor, Michiko Kodoma, who was then seven years old. Another woman, Chieko Kiriake, remembers cremated remains that were the pale pink of cherry blossom petals.
The explosions, though, were only the beginning of the nightmare. Atomic People looks at the hardships the Hibakusha continued to face, including long-term health effects, discrimination, censorship, and becoming unwitting subjects for research by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. But there is some hope too, particularly in the resilience of survivors, thousands of whom have campaigned for nuclear disarmament and improved medical care.
When Oppenheimer was released in 2023, director Christopher Nolan was criticized by some for making the conscious decision to elide the Japanese experience. Atomic People should be mandatory co-viewing. Just do yourself a favor and don’t watch before bed.
(Stream on PBS.org or the PBS app. And donate to your local PBS station while you’re at it!)
Eddington
If you missed Ari Aster’s extremely polarizing COVID Western when it hit theaters last month, it is now available for digital rental so you can watch at home — which seems fitting for this satire about the derangement and isolation wrought by the pandemic, when millions of us were glued to our screens. Joaquin Phoenix stars as as Joe Cross, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico who resents the county mask mandate nearly as much as he resents the local mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal, who is officially in everything right now) and decides to run against him. The film, which takes a wildly farcical turn in its second half, has divided critics since its Cannes debut because of how viscerally it conjures the brain-breaking days of the early pandemic — a moment few of us are eager to revisit but which, arguably, we’re still living through.
(Rent or buy on AppleTV, Prime Video, and other on-demand platforms.)
The Hunting Wives
For a very different take on America’s political and cultural divide, try this soapy murder mystery, which dropped a few weeks ago on Netflix. Despite its ridiculousness, I cannot stop watching it. The drama follows Sophie (Brittany Snow), a former political flack who has relocated to Texas from Boston — well, Cambridge, actually. Her beta male husband, Graham (Evan Jonigkeit), drags her to a party thrown by his wealthy boss, Jed (Dermot Mulroney in a giant cowboy hat) which turns out to be an NRA fundraiser. Sophie is appropriately horrified, yet also intrigued by Jed’s boozy, big-haired wife, Margo (Malin Akerman, who clearly seems to be having a blast in the role) and is soon drawn into her circle of hard-partying “deplorables,” with disastrous results. The satire is about as subtle as Margo’s outfits, but the show is so fun you won’t yearn for the nuance.
(Stream on Netflix.)
Code of Silence
In this British crime thriller, Rose Ayling-Ellis plays Alison Brooks, a young deaf woman whose lip-reading skills catch the attention of detectives in the police cafeteria where she works. She is recruited to assist with an investigation into a high-tech heist, and gets dangerously involved with one of the (rather cute) conspirators, Liam Barlow (Kieron Moore). A hit when it premiered in the U.K. in May, the series was created by Catherine Moulton, a screenwriter who has been partially deaf since childhood, and uses onscreen captions to convey the experience of lip-reading and deciphering words out of a jumble of sounds.
(Stream on BritBox)
Let us know what you are watching, reading, or listening to this week in the comments below.
Code of Silence is full of suspense. I hope it ends well for Alison, her character is credible for the mistakes she makes and the series is a really different crime show. I hope it doesn't just stop and make me guess the ending!