Kermode & Mayo’s Take

Some exciting news—The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo. Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member‑only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time.

Amanda Seyfried is our special guest this week. She’s starred in Mean Girls, The Housemaid and Mamma Mia!, but she’s never been a Mancunian... until now. She joins Simon alongside writer-director Mona Fastvold to talk about The Testament of Ann Lee, in which Seyfried stars as the titular leader of the Shakers. You might not have heard of her and the 18th century radical religious sect she founded—and we promise you’ve definitely never seen a musical about her. Seyfried talks about her struggle to crack a Manchester accent for the role, never mind all that ecstatic song and dance—and we hear from Fastvold about he old-school filmmaking techniques that helped her and co-writer husband Brady Corbet bring this unique story to the screen on shoestring budget.

Mark will review The Testament of Ann Lee next week, but we’ve got four more movie reviews for you in the meantime—it's a packed show! First, The Secret Agent, where paranoia and deception collide as an ex-academic gets caught up in South American political turmoil. Then there’s If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, a darkly comic tale of maternal burnout pushed to surreal extremes. We also have Wasteman—a gritty prison drama starring Rye Lane’s David Jonsson. And finally, Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die, a genre-bending evil-tech adventure starring Sam Rockwell.

Plus all the usual delights: the box office top 10, the unpredictable joy of the Laughter Lift, and your tip-top correspondence. Don’t miss it.

Timecodes

00:00:00 Show starts

00:10:09 The Secret Agent review

00:22:02 Box Office Top 10

00:39:24 Mona Fastvold and Amanda Seyfried interview

01:01:24 If I Had Legs I’d Kick You review

01:07:35 Laughter Lift

01:12:09 Wasteman review

01:19:13 Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die review

You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo

Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey

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Some exciting news—The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo. Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member‑only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time.

Bodices will be ripped in this week’s Take, because we’re talking Wuthering Heights. Emerald Fennell heads to the wild and windy moors for a cinematic storm of obsession, repression, lots of rain and, well… let’s just say nobody’s getting this worked up about the weather alone. Controversially starring Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine, it’s already dividing the critics, so where does Mark stand?

The lascivious literary adaptation’s director is our guest this week. She joins Simon to talk about the story’s sensuality, toxicity, and how much glaring, breathing, and storm-lashed longing is too much glaring, breathing, and storm-lashed longing? She tells us how it felt to realise her teenage dream of bringing her vision for this classic to the screen, and why its tale of love, revenge, and emotional chaos still gets pulses racing.

Plus reviews of three more of the week’s cinematic offerings. There’s Crime 101, Bart Layton’s sleek thriller pairing Chris Hemsworth’s precision jewel thief with Mark Ruffalo’s relentlessly pursuing detective, and proving once again that nobody in LA should ever relax. Whistle brings supernatural horror and the world’s worst extracurricular activity, as students discover that cursed ancient Aztec artefacts are best left well alone. And Little Amélie offers something altogether gentler — an animated adaptation of Amélie Nothomb’s autobiographical story of childhood, identity, and wonder.

All this, plus the box office top 10, a trip to the dizziest heights of humour in the Laughter Lift, and the customary digressions and delights of another top Take.

00:00:00 Show starts

00:08:53 Crime 101 review

00:18:33 Box Office Top 10

00:32:14 Emerald Fennell interview

00:46:27 Wuthering Heights review

01:00:06 Laughter Lift

01:03:11 Little Amelie review

01:08:49 Whistle review

You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo

Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey

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A Sony Music Entertainment production.

Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts

To advertise on this show contact: [email protected]
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello hello, Take listeners!A quick heads‑up: if you’re not yet part of our brilliant Patreon community, you’re missing out on an entire extra episode every single week.

 

Take 2 is where Mark & Simon stretch out, go deeper, get sillier, and answer the questions we simply can’t squeeze into the main show. And that’s just the start. Our Patreon subscribers also get polls, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, newsletters, video versions of Take 2, and Take Ultra — our fortnightly extra video and audio show packed with even more of the good stuff.

Here’s a free taste of this week’s Take 2. If you enjoy it, come join us on Patreon — you’ll instantly unlock a whole world of bonus content and become part of something genuinely special.

 

Head over to Patreon for more. And here's a code to get 90% off your first month: T90. Just add it at checkout. Join Mark and Simon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/kermodeandmayo/membership

 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some exciting news—The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo. Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member‑only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time.

It’s the take you’ve all been waiting for... Mark’s Melania review. Did he enjoy this, er, ‘documentary’ about the FLOTUS? Obviously not. Will you enjoy listening to him slate it? We think so. Buckle up.

Our guest this week is Riz Ahmed—actor, musician, writer and all-round creative force—joining Simon to talk about his bold new film adaptation of Hamlet. Reimagining Shakespeare’s most introspective tragedy for the screen, Ahmed takes on the iconic role of the Prince of Denmark in a version that fuses classic text with contemporary urgency. He tells Simon what it means to wrestle with “to be or not to be” in the modern world.

Mark also reviews Hamlet, plus three more of this week’s notable releases. There’s Send Help, Sam Raimi’s survival thriller that strands its characters in a fight against both nature and themselves; The Chronology of Water, a visceral adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, and Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut; and It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a documentary portrait of the elusive, mythic musician whose influence still reverberates decades on.

All this, plus the box office top 10, the lofty pleasures of the Laughter Lift, and the usual conversational twists, turns, and small-hill-pedantry you’ve come to expect.

Timecodes with YT clip codes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free)

Send Help review - 08:53 ( clip: 11:27 – 12:18

Box Office Top 10 - 00:15:56

Melania review - 00:18:46 (clip 00:19:10 - 00:19:58)



Riz Ahmed interview - 00:38:50 (film clip Universal 00:39:16 - 00:40:02)

Hamlet review - 00:55:07

Laughter Lift - 01:02:50

Chronology of Water review - 01:04:46 (clip 01:05:41 - 01:06:32)

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley 01:11:19 (clip 01:11:56 - 01:12:44)





You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo

Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey

EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

A Sony Music Entertainment production.

Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts

To advertise on this show contact: [email protected]
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some exciting news—The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo. Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member‑only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time.

Our guests this week are two comedy giants: star of Arrested Development, 30 Rock and BoJack Horseman, Will Arnett—and mega-successful scouse standup John Bishop. It’s Bishop’s unlikely comedy origin story that inspired Is This Thing On?, the new Hollywood feelgood blockbuster directed by Bradley Cooper. In it, Arnett plays a divorced dad who puts his name down for an open mic at a bar just to save the entry fee—then accidentally catches the comedy bug. As he secretly follows his new standup dreams, can comedy save his sanity—and maybe even his marriage?

Find out what Mark makes of it, plus two more of this week’s big screen releases. First up its Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s homage to the French new wave film movement of the 1960s. Linklater’s film dramatises the making of one of its essential movies, Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless. And from uber-cool Parisians murderous monkey’s, we’ll be reviewing Primate too: a tongue in cheek horror where a pet chimp goes bad.

The boys are here in the studio IRL this week, so you’ll be getting all of this, plus the box office top 10 and the banterous heights of the laughter lift, beamed right at you from the room where movie-reviewing magic happens. Keep it real, Vanguardistas and all-comers!

Timecodes with YT clip codes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free)

Nouvelle Vague review - 10:32



Box Office Top 10 - 23:51



Will Arnett and John Bishop interview - 39:19



Is This Thing On? review 56:11



Laughter Lift - 01:03:04

Primate review - 01:07:20







You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo

Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey

EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

A Sony Music Entertainment production.

Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts

To advertise on this show contact: [email protected]


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices