Thor star Chris Hemsworth helps father with reconnect with his past in an emotional new doco
Chris Hemsworth heads on a road trip with his father, who has early-stage Alzheimer's, in an emotional new documentary.
Read our TV and streaming highlights of the week.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: A ROAD TRIP TO REMEMBER
STREAMING, DISNEY+
Siobhan Duck
Author Thomas Wolfe famously once wrote you can’t go home again, but he hadn’t factored in the almighty will of Chris Hemsworth.
In this documentary, the Hollywood heavyweight pulls out all the stops – including fitting out his childhood home with 1990s furnishings – to help his father Craig, who has been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Giving Craig the chance to reconnect with his memories, the nostalgic visit sees the pair reminisce about family life on Victoria’s Phillip Island.
The chat offers revealing insights into the laid-back lifestyle that set the foundation for Chris and his brothers Luke and Liam to become successful actors.
It also serves as a starting point for their epic road trip to a remote Northern Territory community where the close-knit clan spent their early years.
For the Thor star, the time with his stoic dad is a bittersweet reminder of their bond, and also their shared fears of the long-term impact of this terrible disease.
James Wigney
Whether he’s playing a Formula One driver, a black-ops soldier or Thor, the God of Thunder, Chris Hemsworth has shown some serious courage on the big screen.
However, all of that pales into insignificance compared with what he and his father Craig share in this informative and inspirational documentary that’s part road trip, part science experiment.
Craig’s diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease provided the impetus for a project that would allow the pair to spend more time together.
This film offered the chance to explore the benefits of reminiscence therapy, helping treat Craig’s condition by reconnecting him with significant places and people from his past. Together the duo tour a recreation of their family home, before heading bush to revisit the Northern Territory community where they used to live.
It hits home the most when the men open up about their deepest fears – Craig of being a burden and Chris of watching his beloved dad decline.
DISCOVERING FILM: DIANE KEATON
9.05PM, Friday, SBS
When much-loved actor Diane Keaton died from pneumonia last month, it prompted an outpouring of grief from Hollywood stars and film lovers alike.
It also sparked renewed interest in her impressive back catalogue.
Sure, it will always be 1977’s Annie Hall for which Keaton is best known, but she also brought her unique brand of cinematic magic to a raft of other hit films.
This documentary walks through her career, from her Oscar-winning collaboration with Woody Allen through to her chemistry with co-stars Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in 1996 comedy The First Wives Club.
It’s a love letter to a one-of-a-kind performer.
THE DEATH OF BUNNY MUNRO
STREAMING, BINGE
Even in the hands of Matt Smith, a talented actor with form for playing charismatic egotists and slimeballs, there are few characters as repugnant as Bunny Munro.
The sex-addicted, self-absorbed single dad and salesman is the unlikeable protagonist of this six-part black comedy based on the 2009 novel of the same name by singer-songwriter Nick Cave. Even though there’s no shortage of women willing to fall into bed with Bunny, it’s hard to understand why, given he’s so vile.
When the selfish sod becomes the sole carer of his vulnerable son, Bunny Jr (Rafael Mathé), he treats his grieving offspring as an understudy to his womanising ways. It’s bleak stuff.
BEING EDDIE
STREAMING, NETFLIX
Following the lead of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Victoria Beckham, comedian Eddie Murphy offers up this deep dive into his life and career. Murphy reflects on his childhood (claiming he willed himself to get over obsessive-compulsive disorder because he didn’t want to be “crazy”), his complicated relationship with sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (on which he was a cast member from 1980 to 1984) and his rise in Hollywood.
This candid doco paints a fascinating portrait of the man behind the legend.
The final sequence, during which he gleefully performs a stand-up routine with ventriloquist dummies of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, is bizarrely irreverent.
The Marlow Murder Club
STREAMING from THURSDAY, BRITBOX
On a quiet evening, retired archaeologist Judith Potts (Samantha Bond) is startled by the sound of a gunshot from her neighbour’s garden.
When the police fob off her concerns, she takes matters into her own hands by enlisting the new vicar’s wife (Cara Horgan) and the village’s dog walker (Jo Martin) to help with her investigation. If you enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club or Queens Of Mystery, then this gentle British whodunnit will pique your interest.
TopKnotz
8.30PM, THURSDAY, NINE and streaming, 9NOW
When two of Australia’s most indefatigable entertainers, Miguel Maestre and Grant Denyer, head off in search of adventure in New Zealand, you know it’s going to be
a wild ride. The first scenic stop on their thrillseeking tour is a treacherous stretch of river rapids, which the pair tackle in an inflatable unicorn.
Then, Maestre cooks up a seafood feast in a glacier while Denyer pilots one of the world’s fastest racing boats.
THE VALLEY
8.30PM, THURSDAY, 7BRAVO
If you’re not a devotee of reality favourite Vanderpump Rules then you’re unlikely to know these people.
With their surgically enhanced features dwarfed only by their inflated egos, five couples proudly air their dirty laundry for our viewing pleasure.
Resident villain Jax Taylor is begrudgingly off to rehab after throwing a chair during a spat with his on-again, off-again partner Brittany Cartwright.
She’s understandably miffed about their clash, as well as the G-string she found in the en suite of their family home. Spoiler alert: it didn’t belong to her.
THE FAMILY PLAN 2
STREAMING, APPLE TV
Once again borrowing heavily from the True Lies playbook, this action-packed sequel to the 2023 streaming hit follows a family man who previously worked as a covert assassin.
Now that the cat is out of the bag about his past, car salesman Dan (Mark Wahlberg) has returned to his quiet suburban life with his wife Jessica (Michelle Monaghan) and their three children.
However, when the crew decide to spend Christmas together in London, Dan’s deadly connections once again suck them all into a life-or-death mission. Kit Harington co-stars as Dan’s nemesis.
MISCONDUCT
STREAMING, TUBI
While recently promoting his memoir We Did OK, Kid, Sir Anthony Hopkins candidly opened up about his battle with alcoholism and the wedge it drove between him and his daughter Abigail.
The book delves into other painful chapters in his life, but also reflects on his stellar career. Best known for his Oscar-winning role as the malicious serial killer Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence Of The Lambs, Hopkins has played all sorts of villains over the years, including in this compelling 2016 thriller.
Here, Hopkins is the controlling owner of a pharmaceutical firm, whose much younger girlfriend (Malin Akerman, The Hunting Wives) gets kidnapped. Or so it seems.
Originally published as Thor star Chris Hemsworth helps father with reconnect with his past in an emotional new doco
