New video: ‘Band Aid’ is a heartfelt indie dramedy with a strong hook

“Band Aid” (Shout! Factory DVD, $16.97; Blu-ray, $24.97)

Gifted character actress Zoe Lister-Jones wrote, directed, co-produced and co-stars in “Band Aid,” a heartfelt indie dramedy with a strong hook. Lister-Jones and Adam Pally play a husband and wife who regret the compromises in their careers and marriage, and decide to make a last-ditch effort to save both by forming a musical trio with an eccentric next-door neighbor (played by Fred Armisen). They turn their daily squabbles into catchy pop-punk songs and begin to reconnect with their youthful ideals — until the potential to turn their hobby into money tests their partnership yet again. The plot of “Band Aid” peters out a bit in its second half, but it’s always clear-eyed about one of life’s great truths: to build something lasting, you have to accept that sometimes you’re going to be miserable.

[Special features: Deleted scenes]

VOD

“The Limehouse Golem” (available 9/8)

There’s a lot going on in director Juan Carlos Medina and screenwriter Jane Goldman’s adaptation of Peter Ackroyd’s dense historical mystery novel “Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem.” Bill Nighy stars as a Victorian-era detective who’s simultaneously on the trail of a notorious serial killer and trying to solve the possibly related death of a writer. Olivia Cooke plays the latter victim’s wife (and the prime suspect in his murder), who tells the hero her life story while he looks for clues. Filled with eccentric characters and sudden twists, “The Limehouse Golem” is overly busy but never dull, and recommended especially to those who like their anglophilia dressed up in vintage attire.

TV set of the week

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” (HBO DVD, $19.98; Blu-ray, $24.98)

“Hamilton” Tony-winner Renée Elise Goldsberry stars in the Emmy-nominated HBO movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” playing a Baltimore woman who inadvertently inspired decades of fruitful scientific research, when her cancerous cells were passed around medial labs without her or her family’s consent. Writer-director George C. Wolfe (another Tony Awards regular) adapts Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 nonfiction bestseller, with producer Oprah Winfrey playing Lacks’ daughter. The film addresses the complicated racial, family and medical legacies that the book described so well.

[Special features: None]

From the archives

“Maurice” (Cohen DVD, $22.99; Blu-ray, $30.99)

After director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant had a breakthrough international success with a lush, romantic 1985 adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel “A Room with a View,” they followed up with a take on one of Forster’s lesser-known works: the posthumously published novel “Maurice.” Unusually progressive for its time, the 1987 film stars James Wilby as an early 20th century British gentleman troubled by his attractions to other men — first to a classmate named Clive (played by a young Hugh Grant) and then to one of Clive’s servants, Alec (played by an even younger Rupert Graves). “Maurice” is frank about the social pressures on gay men in England over 100 years ago, but the story is more sweet than sour, treating its hero’s affairs with the same taste and nuance that has become the Merchant-Ivory hallmark.

[Special features: Extensive new and old interviews, plus deleted scenes with Ivory commentary]

Three more to see

“All Eyez on Me” (Lionsgate DVD, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99; also available on VOD); “Rough Night” (Sony DVD, $30.99; Blu-ray, $34.99; 4K, $45.99; also available on VOD); “Raw” (Universal/Focus DVD, $26.98; also available on VOD).

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