Five things to watch this week

The Fastest Woman on Earth – Showmax

The bittersweet story of American TV personality and professional racer Jessi Combs is extensively revealed in this intimate documentary, filmed over the course of seven years. During that time she accepted the challenge of becoming the driver of a car made from repurposed fighter engine parts in an effort to become the fastest woman on four wheels, by whatever means necessary and no matter the consequences to her personal life.

Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn – Apple TV +

The second recent docuseries to focus on the strange and much-covered case of former Renault and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, who was embroiled in a fraud scandal. He was fired in 2018 after landing in Tokyo for what he believed to be a routine business meeting and then engineered his escape from the country hidden in a metal box after claiming he had been taken hostage. Featuring extensive interviews with Ghosn and myriad big names from the business journalism fraternity, the series attempts to grapple with the question of who Ghosn is, why he did what he did and how his ruthlessly ambitious nature helped him climb the heights of the corporate ladder while sowing the seeds for his spectacular downfall.

The Long Goodbye – Prime Video

Robert Altman’s stellar 1973 neo-noir remains one of the smartest and effortlessly cool on-screen adaptations of Raymond Chandler’s beloved Philip Marlowe novels. Elliot Gould stars as Marlowe, transported to 1970s LA where, after helping out an old friend by driving him to Mexico, he returns to find himself embroiled in a twisty plot involving his pal’s dead ex-wife, an alluring femme fatale and an alcoholic writer. All Marlowe is trying to do is feed his cat and hang out with the free-spirited young ladies next door, but ’70s LA and the always subversively anarchic Altman have other plans.

You Are So Not Invited to my Bat Mitzvah – Netflix

Adam Sandler and his daughter Sunny team up for a surprisingly enjoyable family film that, while rooted in the cringey specifics of its Jewish cultural setting, still has plenty of relatable points to make about the awkward perils of teenage girlhood at large. Besties Stacy and Lydia have always promised themselves that come bat mitzvah time, their parties will be epic. But when the attentions of a popular boy and the demands of drama class take them off track, their friendship is tested and their planned bat mitzvah is not as certain as their childhood dreams had promised.

Yogi Berra: It Ain’t Over – Buy from Apple TV+

He’s perhaps best known these days for his distinctive non sequiturs but as this sunny and heartfelt documentary reminds us, Yogi Berra was much more than his “yogisms”. In a career that spanned 18 years as a player and three decades as a manager, Berra became one of baseball’s most celebrated figures and helped break down several significant barriers in the history of America’s favourite pastime. As Berra, who died in 2015, once said, “You can learn a lot by watching”. In this case you certainly will learn about a distinctively optimistic man whose heart was always in the right place, both on and off the diamond.