Watchable the week of May 24, 2021

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Oslo (May 29, 8 p.m., Crave)

I imagine it’s pure coincidence that this TV movie about the secret talks that led to the 1990s Middle East peace process is debuting just a couple of weeks after another outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The latest conflict makes “Oslo” seem like pure fiction when it’s actually a fictionalized version of real-life events, secret back-channel negotiations that took place in Norway and led to the signing of the Oslo I Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

If you know your Middle East history you know the accord fell apart after Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist opposed to the peace process, that an attempt to reach a new deal at the 2000 Camp David Summit failed and that the Second Intifada of anti-Israel violence began shortly thereafter.

Today, a solution to the issue feels farther away than ever, which makes the events portrayed in “Oslo” seem almost miraculous: intransigent enemies sitting across a table from each other in a mansion in the Norwegian countryside and coming to see each other as human beings worthy of being spared suffering.

The film distills the three-hour, Tony Award-winning play by J.T. Rogers into just under two hours. Skilled performances and frequent scene changes — including flashbacks to the visit to Gaza that inspired the two Norwegians who instigated and shepherded the negotiations — keep the talky movie from becoming a slog.

In particular, Brit Ruth Wilson (“Luther,” “The Affair”) and Irishman Andrew Scott (“Sherlock,” “Fleabag”) stand out, playing diplomat Mona Juul and her sociologist husband, Terje Rod-Larsen. Among the actors playing the negotiators, Israel’s Salim Dau, as Palestinian official Ahmed Qurie, and Israeli-German actor Jeff Wilbusch, as Israeli official Uri Savir, do a particularly affecting job of taking their characters from mistrust to acceptance and even regard.

Sure, it’s a sentimentalized version of the facts, but “Oslo” makes the stakes feel high and the breakthroughs feel rewarding, even knowing what we do about how it all turned out.

Whitstable Pearl (May 24, Acorn)

This new detective drama goes down as easily as one of the oysters on the half shell that Pearl Nolan (Kerry Godliman) serves at her restaurant, the Whitstable Pearl.

You may recognize actor and comedian Godliman from the Ricky Gervais series “Derek” and “After Life,” as well as the Lennie James-created “Save Me.” Here she’s an unassuming but whip-smart former cop and single mother who moonlights as a private detective when she’s not running her restaurant in the small seaside town of Whitstable.

It’s always nice to see a woman of a certain age (Godliman is 47) leading a crime drama. It’s also a nice change to see crimes that don’t involve the standard sexual assault and murder of young female victims. In the two episodes made available for review, the victims were male and not all the crimes were murders.

“EastEnders” writer Julie Wassmer created “Whitstable Pearl” based on her own mystery novels.

This is a kindler, gentler kind of crime drama, less plot twist shockers and lurid crime scenes, more ordinary folks getting caught up in bad situations, which doesn’t make it any less satisfying.

Howard Charles (“The Musketeers,” “Shadow and Bone”) plays Pearl’s foil, transplanted big city cop Mike McGuire, who starts off as a cynical antagonist but comes to trust Pearl’s judgment.

Short Takes

The Face of Anonymous (May 25, 9 p.m., TVO)

This documentary is not so much about the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous as it is about one man, Christopher Doyon, an aging hippie affiliated with the movement who calls himself Commander X. Doyon was a young man who made his living selling LSD at rock shows in Massachusetts when he got swept up in the protest movement, first anti-apartheid, later animal rights and other causes. His interests in protests and computers coalesced in Anonymous, the faceless hackers who became famous for cyberattacks against governments and corporations as well as their involvement in movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. Opinions vary as to how influential X was within Anonymous, but he was certainly considered important enough for the FBI to arrest him in 2011. Doyon fled the U.S. soon after, ending up homeless in Toronto, which is where director Gary Lang and co-producer Ian Thornton met him. Thornton eventually helped Doyon escape to Mexico, where he remains in exile and, in his own words, still very much committed to the Anonymous cause.

Maliglutit Searchers (May 28, CBC Gem)

This film, an Inuit take on the John Wayne western “The Searchers,” was part of Canada’s Top Ten film list in 2016. It’s co-directed by Zacharius Kunuk, whose 2001 film “Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner” won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and Natar Ungalaaq, who starred in “Atanarjuat.” Set in Nunavut around 1913, it mixes mundane domesticity and austere beauty with violence and revenge when a group of outcasts kidnap the wife and daughter of Kuanana (Benjamin Kunuk) while he’s out caribou hunting. He pursues them, guided by the spirit of a loon called Kallulik. The dialogue is in Inkuktitut with subtitles.

Also on May 28, CBC Gem debuts Zacharius Kunuk’s “One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk,” in which a white man interrupts Noah’s (Apayata Kotierk) seal hunt in an attempt to persuade him and his community to move to a settlement in Igloolik. Also debuting that day is “Sagawaay K’uuna” (“Edge of the Knife”), the first film made entirely in the Haida language.

Finally, CBC Gem has “Deep in Vogue,” a look at the queer ballroom scene in northern England communities like Liverpool and Manchester. It’s no surprise that behind the costumes, the bravado and the dance moves are people seeking community and acceptance.

Odds and Ends

Probably the most hyped cast reunion in the history of cast reunions can be seen on Crave May 27 at 10 p.m., “Friends: The Reunion.” Yes, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Ross (David Schwimmer), Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) reunite on Stage 24 at Warner Bros. Studios, the original “Friends” soundstage, to relive old times. There were no advance screeners for this one.

Riding high on the success of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” Sacha Baron Cohen has turned bits of the flick that hit the cutting room floor into “Borat Supplemental Reportings Retrieved From Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine” (May 25, Amazon Prime Video). The “multi-part special” includes unseen “Moviefilm” footage, something called “Borat’s American Lockdown,” and six documentary shorts debunking theories like “Vaccine Microchip,” “Mail-in Ballots Scam” and “China Virus.” No word on whether there are any Rudy Giuliani cameos.

Amazon also has a YA series called “Panic” (May 28), which I gather is about teenagers in a small Texas town doing dangerous things.

Netflix has Season 3 of “The Kominsky Method” (May 28), which has lost Alan Arkin but gained Kathleen Turner, reuniting with her old “Romancing the Stone” co-star Michael Douglas.

Disney Plus debuts “Launchpad” (May 28), a collection of live action shorts from filmmakers from under-represented backgrounds.

Sundance Now has the documentary series “Between Black and Blue” (May 25), about a real-life 1975 case in which two New York City police officers were accused of killing a Denver businessman and then fought to clear their names.

This post was edited to add the “Friends” reunion.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.