Films about friendship as we miss the people we know - by Rebecca del Tufo programmer of Saffron Screen Community Cinema

Adult Life Skills (Image: Archant)

I’m sure I’m not the only one missing seeing my friends. Zoom quizzes have their place, but we are all longing just to hang out again. This week’s films all have a friendship at their core, to sustain us until we do, indeed, meet again.

Let’s start with some films for the youngsters who are really missing their mates. There’s a huge power in the stories of Roald Dahl (always worth a re-read), so settle down to James and the Giant Peach (U, Amazon Prime), a gorgeous animation, framed with a live-action story – though here, James’s friends are six insects. But with Miriam Margolyes and Joanna Lumley as the ghastly aunts, this is a delight. Another strange friendship forms between young Sophie and the Big Friendly Giant in Steven Spielberg’s version of The BFG (PG, Amazon Prime), and the pair have to save the humans – including the Queen of England – from man-eating giants.

A Simple Favor (Image: Archant)

Older kids might enjoy an introduction to The Breakfast Club (15, Netflix). Settle down for detention, work out which misfit you are and enjoy the ride, as five high school students discover they have more in common than they thought. Plenty of Brat Pack action and that brilliant ending. Or the funnier-than-expected bromance in The Man From U.N.C.L.E (12A, Netflix) between Henry Cavill’s Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer’s Ilya Kuryakin. It’s all rather silly – and all the better for that. Fast Girls (12A, iplayer) is also great fun, telling the story of four female athletes preparing to run as the 4x100m relay team in the upcoming world championships in London. Posh girl Lisa (Lily James) is rubbing Shania (Leonora Crichlow) up the wrong way, and their aggravated coach (Noel Clarke) has to meld them into a top-notch team. Thoroughly enjoyable and a throw-back to the glorious summer of the 2012 Olympics.

Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy (15, All4) tells of John Lennon’s early years and his friendship with one Paul McCartney, laying the foundations for the brilliant years of The Beatles. And Anne-Marie Duff and Kristen Scott Thomas are, of course, excellent as Lennon’s absentee mother and buttoned-up aunt. I loved the warmth of the friendship between Colin and Miles in Blindspotting (15, Netflix), as the two young men observe the gentrification of their San Francisco neighbourhood and try (unsuccessfully) to stay out of trouble. The film is warm and funny with a timely social commentary on the intersections of race and class.

If you have one of our MUBI subscriptions, make yourself some noodles and cuddle up with the sisterhood and friendship of Our Little Sister (PG, Mubi), a tenderly crafted story from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, about three twenty-something sisters who take in their teenage half-sister after their father’s death. The film follows the quartet’s lives over the course of changing seasons and draws a subtle portrait of a family learning to cope with the past by creating their own future. Also on Mubi is Waterlilies (15, Mubi), the debut film from Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) about a trio of adolescent girls, as they come of age and explore friendship and love, around the local pool and the world of synchronised swimming.

Much spikier, and with many more Martinis, is A Simple Favor (15, Netflix), a comedy thriller full of acidic humour and sparkling dialogue from Paul Feig (Bridesmaids). When small-town blogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) befriends the glamorous Emily (Blake Lively), after their sons request a play date, she is completely over-awed by this enigmatic woman. But when Emily disappears, Stephanie is determined to find out what happened, uncovering a complicated web of mystery. And watch complicated friendships, and a difficult Doctor Who, as Jodie Whittaker plays Anna, living in her mum’s shed and crippled by the loss of her twin brother, in Adult Life Skills (15, Amazon Prime). A visit by her best friend, plus the friendship of a young boy obsessed with Westerns, and the adoring attentions of the local estate agent, help her through her grief in this quirky and sweet film.

Grab a large glass of wine and settle down with Book Club (12A, Netflix). Four legendary actresses (Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen) play lifelong friends who decide to read Fifty Shades of Grey in their book club. The women reassess their love and sex lives, getting frank with each other and their partners and unleashing a torrent of outrageous innuendo, delivered with relish by a deliciously game cast. It is a treat to watch this quartet of great actors working together in a film that’s as irresistibly cheeky as it’s shamelessly cheesy.