Freeview film of the day: Friday 1 September – The English Patient

The English Patient ★★★★★
11.30pm-2.25am ITV3

The passage of time has been kind to the multi-Oscar-winning English Patient, whose epic sweep and desert settings – which inevitably recall Lawrence of Arabia – improve with age. Anthony Minghella’s skilful adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker-winning novel is at heart two love stories: one set during the Second World War; the other told in flashback. Ralph Fiennes plays the patient of Juliette Binoche’s nurse, a pilot haunted by a torrid affair with Kristin Scott Thomas. It’s ambitious, patient in its pacing, and Minghella’s direction is as sophisticated as his screenplay.

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