‘Growing up in Mount Druitt, there were three options: footy, the factory, or crime’
The formidable Pacific Islander drill crew Onefour are the subjects of a moving new Netflix documentary.
Onefour: Against All Odds
Netflix
Here is a documentary about OneFour, the formidable Pacific Islander drill crew from the “trenches” of Mt Druitt, who put Australian hip-hop on the map with their viral 2019 track The Message. The documentary’s focus is on OneFour’s run-ins with the New South Wales police, who made it targets of Strike Force Raptor (a specialised squad that cracks down on groups and individuals involved in “serious and organised crime”). The Strike Force has crippled OneFour’s career at every turn: subjecting it to the indignation of constant surveillance and surprise house raids, cancelling its live performances, and attempting to pull its music from streaming services. Filmmaker Gabriel Gasparinatos wisely does not gloss over the group’s legal troubles — four out of five members have served time — but instead uses it to argue that these are young men who have turned to music to escape circumstance (in the film, group member Spenny says that as an Islander growing up in Mt Druitt, there were just three options: “footy, the factory, or a life of crime”). The OneFour vs. Police narrative is compelling, but the best bits are when we get a peek into the musicians’ inner lives — their relationships with their family and their community. There’s a moving focus on Street University, a youth program that strives to cultivate hope and dignity among young kids in Western Sydney, which introduced OneFour to its first recording studio.
Erotic Stories
SBS on Demand
If you’re going into SBS’s new sex series expecting to be annoyed by 30-somethings with ironic stick-and-poke tattoos banging on about the virtues of “ethical non-monogamy,” you may be pleasantly surprised. Erotic Stories, directed by Madeleine Gottlieb (who was behind the superb Latecomers), delivers eight snippy, understated episodes about sex and the weird ways it can complicate, betray, and bring us joy. The stories vary wildly in both quality and narrative — highlights include Kate Box playing a sex-deprived Lesbian experimenting with dating apps, and an episode about a young gay man who is fetishised for his disability. It’s more emotional than it is, say, Mickey Rourke in 9 ½ weeks “erotic” — but there is a lot of sex and some of it gobsmackingly graphic.
Alma’s Not Normal
Britbox
There’s something about Alma. When we first meet our hero, she’s clad in a fluffy pink fur coat and toxic waste green leggings, slogging up a hill on her push bike. Alma’s destination is the Jobcentre — her deadbeat drug-dealing ex has just given her the flick, and now she can’t pay rent. Alma, who vaguely wants to be an actor, has never worked — her only qualifications are “pizzazz and charisma”. We learn early on that her entire life has been a rough trot: her mum (Happy Valley’s Siobhan Finneran) is a recovering heroin addict with firebug tendencies (Alma refers to herself as “the baby in Trainspotting, if she’d lived”) who is doing a stint in a psychiatric ward. Her only reliable family member is Grandma Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne), a third-wave feminist (think house full of phallic sculptures) who is never without a cigarette dangling from her lips. Willan wrote the show based on her experience in the UK care system — there is a lot of pain and trauma here, all wrapped in the guise of rip-snorting comedy.
Lessons in Chemistry
Apple TV+
In Apple TV+‘s adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’s bestseller, Oscar-winner Brie Larson plays Elizabeth Zott, a straitlaced chemistry whiz in the 1950s who is sidelined by her lab colleagues because of the sexism of the era. So she applies her scientific knowledge to a gig as the host of one of the first TV chef shows. There’s a romance that drives the whole thing, between Elizabeth and another chemistry genius, the softly-spoken Calvin. There’s also a thinly-woven civil rights C-plot chugging along in the background. It’s a paint-by-numbers white-feminist story that feels too familiar to be truly interesting. As is the case with all Apple TV+ programs, the production value is immense: all meticulous pastel sets and divinely cut costumes. Larson is also great, in that trained, shiny Hollywood way. Lessons in Chemistry is essentially the television equivalent of an aeroplane movie: it’s unlikely you’ll stay invested, but it’s nicely made enough to nod off to.
Love on the Spectrum US
Netflix
If you’re in need of a happy cry, this is just the tonic. Made by the Australian production company Northern Pictures, Love on the Spectrum is a big-hearted reality show about adults dating with autism. Over six episodes, it follows six hopeful romantics aged 23 to 63 and their varied experiences with dating. There’s speed dating, blind dates set up by producers, and in the case of the 63-year-old Steve — a handsome and charming San Franciscan who was only diagnosed with autism in recent years — internet dating. Love on the Spectrum handles its subjects with intelligence and empathy and, crucially, never reduces them to charity cases. With this much love flying at you from every angle, it is impossible not to be charmed.