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Ninjababy, Paddington, and more Ben Whishaw to watch this weekend

Published about 2 years ago • 9 min read

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Wherever you are in the world, catch up with one of the highlights of 2021 world premieres, Ninjababy. Plus, in honour of our This is Going to Hurt podcast dropping this week, celebrate some of Ben Whishaw's best performances, including Paddington/Paddington 2, A Very English Scandal, and Lilting.

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Ninjababy

March 11-20 worldwide (Athena FF); also on VOD and streaming on Channel 4 in the UK; streaming on SBS Movies in AU

One of the best films of 2022 is still holding on its release, so don't miss this chance to catch it early. This thoroughly modern sort-of rom-com unexpected pregnancy story is a delightful, funny, and emotional must see.

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Here's an excerpt from Orla's intro to her interview with the director and lead actress:

Rakel (Kristine Thorp), twenty three, is a bit of a mess — but joyfully so. “She’s really just enjoying life,” said Yngvild Sve Flikke, writer-director of the delightful Ninjababy, of which Rakel is the main character. “She doesn’t know what she’s going to be. If she wants sex, she’s having sex, and she doesn’t really remember who she had sex with.” Her hair is permanently greasy, hanging loose or pulled back into a functional ponytail, and her clothes are mismatched and oversized (although enviably comfy). In short, she hasn’t quite figured herself out yet, but she’s in no rush to. A spanner is thrown in the works when an unwanted pregnancy threatens to catapult Rakel toward responsibility, right at the moment in her life when she was revelling most in irresponsibility.
In its portrayals of sex, womanhood, motherhood, and pregnancy, Ninjababy is a refreshingly subversive film. With Rakel, Flikke creates a female character who loves sex and has no interest in motherhood. Rakel discovers she’s pregnant six and a half months in — too late for an abortion. Flikke immediately challenges our expectations of what a pregnant woman’s body looks like by showing that some women, like Rakel, don’t grow a huge stomach during pregnancy. What follows is a tumultuous and stressful pregnancy, as Rakel works out what to do with the rapidly growing foetus that she didn’t even know she was carrying. Give it to an adoption agency that won’t let her have a say on which family the baby ends up with? Offer it to her older half-sister, Mie (Silya Nymoen), who had previously tried unsuccessfully to conceive with her partner? Or leave it with the father, a casual hookup nicknamed Dick Jesus (Arthur Berning) by Rakel and her flatmate, Ingrid (Tora Christine Dietrichson).

​Read the full interview.​

​Click here for tickets worldwide.​

We also published a podcast on Ninjababy!

In a free episode in January, we discussed two comedies (with a bit of romance) about women who find themselves with unwanted pregnancies and either get an abortion (Obvious Child) or are forced to carry the fetus to term (Norwegian film Ninjababy) as she's too late into her pregnancy to abort.

Both films are about young women still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do, struggling financially, but with a creative outlook (stand-up comedy and graphic novels, respectively). They also each meet a very nice man along the way and sparks fly.

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This episode really builds on our (now members only) 2020 episode 36: Abortion on screen and Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

In this new episode, we talk about how much has changed since 2014's Obvious Child, and how this lets 2021's Ninjababy feel much more modern. We also discuss hopes for the future for depictions of unwanted pregnancy on screen that would be even more politically liberal than these depictions.

Obvious Child is widely available on VOD. Ninjababy is on VOD in the UK, and is due for a release in North America sometime this year (date TBA), but we'll be keeping an eye out for virtual film festival screening opportunities for the film in the interim in our weekly Friday newsletter.

​Click here to listen to the episode on your favourite podcatcher (recommended on mobile especially!)​

​Click here to read the show notes on our website (where you can also listen to the episode!)​

Best of Ben Whishaw

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This week on the (members only) podcast, we went deep on the new Ben Whishaw-starring TV series This is Going to Hurt.


As a member, you already have access to the full episode in your Premium Seventh Row Podcast feed. This is the latest Bonus episode, #23.

Set up your Premium Podcast Feed to listen to the entire podcast archive

To listen to the full podcast archive, access your Premium Podcast feed ("Premium Seventh Row podcast") from whatever podcatcher you prefer.

To set this up, log into your account here.​

Follow the instructions to set up your podcast feed. It will look like this:

As a member, you also have access to all of our past bonus episodes and all of our episodes that are more than six months old.

​Click here to read the show notes (where you can also listen to an excerpt!)​

So it's a good time to celebrate some of his best work with a mini-Ben Whishaw festival. Here are some essentials.

Paddington & Paddington 2

Paddington: Netflix Canada/Australia/US/UK/Ireland/Belgium/Denmark, Prime/Disney+ Ireland,Stan/Binge/FoxtelNow AU, Prime France

​Find it in your country​

Paddington 2: Netflix/Binge/FoxtelNow AU, BBC iPlayer/Disney+/VirginTVGo UK, Tubi US, VOD Canada/UK/US

​Find it in your country​

Ben Whishaw is, of course, the unforgettable voice of Paddington.

Paddington 2, Best of the decade
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Here's Orla on Paddington 2 which was #29 on our list of the 50 best films of the 2010s:

As much as we love our indies, there’s a certain great joy to when a big-budget, splashy blockbuster turns out to be great. It’s proof that there’s still room for artistry in the studio system, no matter how hard it might be to marry the two. Paul King made a thrilling, funny, heartwarming film with Paddington 2, one that easily outclasses its predecessor. What’s more, the film ends with Hugh Grant’s delightful villain performing one of the most well choreographed song and dance number in ages.

We also recorded a podcast on the two films! Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2

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Orla, Brett, and I were joined by Lena Wilson to discuss why our hearts were armed by the Paddington films, how disgusting marmalade really is, how Paddington is the ultimate agent of colonialsim....and more (including, Paddington: sperm donor?). If you want to know how all these things fit together, you'll have to listen to the episode!

​Read the show notes here.​


As a member, you have access to the entire podcast archive, including this members only episode from December 2020.

To listen to the episode, set up your personal Premium Seventh Row podcast feed, and look for episode 69: Paddington and Paddington 2

Set up your Premium Podcast Feed to listen to the entire podcast archive

To listen to the full podcast archive, access your Premium Podcast feed ("Premium Seventh Row podcast") from whatever podcatcher you prefer.

To set this up, log into your account here.​

Follow the instructions to set up your podcast feed. It will look like this:

As a member, you also have access to all of our past bonus episodes and all of our episodes that are more than six months old.

​

A Very English Scandal

OutTV Canada, VOD AU, Prime US, BBC iPlayer UK

Unexpectedly works as Paddington 2 slash, in which the Paddington villain (Hugh Grant) fucks Paddington (Ben Whishaw).

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Based on a true story, written by Russell T. Davies, and directed by Stephen Frears, this three-part miniseries is the story of politician Jeremy Thorpe, who had a relationship with a younger working class man, Norman Scott (Ben Whisahw), treated him poorly, and then saw his political career destroyed. Hilarious and smart with richly drawn characters, it's also a thoughtful look at being gay in the 1970s and the rampant homophobia (plus privilege and class). Whishaw picked up awards for this left, right and centre, deservedly, but Hugh Grant is also excellent... plus, bonus Alex Jennings (who also appears on This is Going to Hurt absolutely killing it).

Lilting

VOD UK/Canada/US, Stan AU, Kanopy US

Though featuring one of Ben Whishaw's best performances, this wonderful indie is little seen, but totally lovely.

Still from Lilting, directed by Hong Khaou. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
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Here's an excerpt from my review back at my very first Sundance WAY back in 2014:

Is there anything Ben Whishaw can’t do? He played Hamlet in the West End at twenty-three, Keats in Bright Star, Q in Skyfall, a timid but potentially dangerous young man in Criminal Justice, and Shakespeare’s Richard II. In the new film Lilting, he gives yet another BAFTA-worthy performance as Richard, whose lover Kai recently died, leaving Richard responsible for his mother, Junn (Pei-Pei Cheng).
When Richard first visits Junn in her home for the elderly after Kai’s death, he discovers that she has a new English lover. Despite moving to England thirty years ago, she never learned the language. Keen to help her out, he engages an amateur translator (Naomi Christie) to help them communicate, which also gives Richard an excuse to visit and work out how to proceed.
Writer-director Hong Khaou mostly achieves a delicate balancing act of pointing out the limitations of communication between people who don’t share a common language, and how words can even be a barrier to communication: once Junn can converse with her lover, they discover their differences and things go poorly. It’s occasionally a bit on the nose, but it’s an often moving exploration of how we connect – or fail to -with other people through language.

​Read the full review.​

Richard II (The Hollow Crown)

Cineplex/iTunes Canada, Amazon US (search for Hollow Crown S1)

If you want to see Ben Whishaw doing tour de force Shakespearean acting, it'd be hard to top this BAFTA winning role opposite the great Rory Kinnear. It's celebrating its 10th anniversary this year!

The Hollow Crown Richard II
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Here's an excerpt from my review WAY WAY Back in 2013:

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
..let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d.
Rupert Goold’s screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard II opens with Richard II (Ben Whishaw) speaking this abridged monologue in voiceover, which augurs the tumultuous events to come in this four-part BBC miniseries, The Hollow Crown, about monarchs, leadership, and fathers and sons. Executive Producer Sam Mendes had the idea to make a new television adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henriad plays shot on location. The series brings together Shakespeare’s history tetralogy – “Richard II”, “Henry IV Part 1”, “Henry IV Part 2”, and “Henry V” – which chart the changes in leadership of three English Kings: the rightful heir but weak King Richard II (Ben Whishaw), his usurper Henry Bolingbroke or Henry IV (Rory Kinnear and Jeremy Irons), and the usurper’s rightful heir, Prince Harry (Tom Hiddleston), who would become Henry V.
The Hollow Crown series is phenomenal, with beautiful photography and unparalleled acting: it wouldn’t be possible to assemble such an impressive cast on stage all at once. And for plays that are so much about playing parts and keeping up appearances, close-ups are invaluable for showing us the characters’ innermost thoughts, which are not on full display to their audience at court or in public. In the first episode, there’s a great, if heavy-handed, scene where Richard stands on a rampart to speak to Bolingbroke and his supporters. He seems strong and authoritative, except when we cut to close-up and see the sweat and fear on his face.

​Read the review.​

Happy watching!

Best,

Alex Heeney, Editor-in-Chief

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Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.

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