You won’t be able to look away: Shirley reviewed

This week, two electrifying performances in two excellent films rather than two mediocre performances in the one mediocre film — see: Rebecca — so things are looking up.

Firstly, Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed, directed by Bassam Tariq and co-written by the pair. Ahmed plays Zed, a British-Pakistani rapper who has lived in New York for two years and is on the brink of stardom when he returns home to his family in London. It’s intended as a brief visit but then he is struck down by an autoimmune disease that is never named but is something like multiple sclerosis. The point is, I think, even his body doesn’t recognise him any more. Or as his American girlfriend had put it to him: ‘For someone who raps so much about where they’re from, when was the last time you spent time with your family?’

In print, in the cold light of day, this all sounds like a typical culture-clash film and the more I go on the more it will sound like that.