Gemma Arterton is a brilliant actor who seems to have eschewed large scale films for smaller and more intimate pictures, and for that we should be thankful.

Her latest is Summerland, screening at Kinokulture this Friday and Saturday night. Here she stars as Alice, a reclusive writer looking back on her experiences of caring for an evacuee child in the 1940s, as she looks into the child’s past she sees startling connections to her own life.

Arterton can do soul searching with the best of them, and she seems perfectly at home here among a cast also including Gugu Mbatha-Raw and the ever dependable Penelope Wilton and Tom Courtenay – www.kinokulture.org.uk for tickets.

Amazon Prime members can see two great Arterton films for free; The Escape, where she plays a mother leaving her family to find solitude in France. It’s interesting that women leaving families invoke much bigger reactions than men leaving, and this film has some gut wrenching scenes that play on those feelings.

Arterton is simply brilliant here, conflict etched on her face throughout as she tries to reconcile her needs with her children’s.

Secondly 2010’s The Disappearance of Alice Creed which also stars Line of Duty’s Martin Compston. This tricky twisty abduction drama has a tiny cast and a fantastic script that keeps you guessing all the way through.

My last recommendation is Criminal on Netflix. This is a show with a great concept; each self-contained episode takes place almost entirely in the interview room of a Police Station. Series One featured big names including David Tennant and Hayley Attwell as the suspects facing a grilling.

Series Two keeps up the quality and proves that a small room doesn’t mean a small drama.