Matthew macfadyen

Everyone can name JFK and his (probable) assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Abraham Lincoln and everyone’s least favorite actor, John Wilkes Booth. But what of James A.  Garfield, America’s short-lived (in both senses) 20th President, and his murderer, Charles Guiteau? Both men have disappeared into obscurity, at least until Candice Millard’s award-winning 2011 true-crime history Destiny of the Republic, which skillfully unpicked the sheer strangeness of the backstory behind Garfield’s protracted death and Guiteau’s conviction and execution for the crime. Garfield won election in the 1880 presidential election almost by accident.

If there is one thing that the rescheduled Emmy awards from this year will be remembered for, it is comforting predictability. Succession swept the board in the dramatic stakes, as The Bear did a similarly imperial job in the comedy categories. There is, of course, something of an arbitrary nature about the way that both shows have been designated; Succession contained more laugh-out-loud scenes, characters and storylines than most comedies — and The Bear alternates between humor and serious dramatic heft with aplomb. Yet the powers that be decided to designate them thus, and I doubt that Jesse Armstrong or Christopher Storer, the creators of the two shows, will be complaining too vociferously today.

Operation Mincemeat is based on the book by Ben Macintyre, which in turn is based on what Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper called ‘the most spectacular single episode in the history of deception’. It is so spectacular that the film doesn’t have to do much aside from tell it, and that’s what it does, straightforwardly, plainly, no bells and whistles. It’s a classic tale of British second world war derring-do and the sort of film you’ll watch with your dad on a Sunday afternoon, before or after Ice Cold in Alex. Plus it has a terrific cast that includes not one but two Mr Darcys (Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen).

First, the latest digital film release: The Assistant, starring Julia Garner in a slowly, slowly, catchy, catchy tale that won’t grab you from the off — I kept thinking: is anything actually going to happen? — but you must stick with it, you must. This is a film of quiet, cumulative power, which has much to say about serial sexual predators in the Harvey Weinstein mould, and how they get away with it. Or did. (Am hoping, praying, we can use the past tense now.) Garner plays Jane, who works for a Hollywood movie mogul, and events take place over the course of a single day. She gets into the office early. She flicks on the lights. She cleans down the couch. She gulps a bowl of Froot Loops. She photocopies a script. Something will happen now, surely.