New to TVNZ+: August 9-15

Reunion (August 10) is a four-part revenge thriller about a deaf man’s determination to expose the truth behind the events that led to his 10-year murder conviction.

The bilingual series features both British Sign Language, with subtitles, and spoken English. (Most of the cast are deaf or use BSL in their roles.)

Writer William Mager, who’s deaf, says he was inspired by “deaf rage” to put his own twist on movies like Get Carter and The Outfit.

“Reunion starts out like those classic thrillers, but ends up in a very different place.”

Matthew Gurney, Anne-Marie Duff (Bad Sisters) and EastEnders’ Rose Ayling-Ellis (who also appears in Code of Silence) star.

“In many ways, Reunion is a fairly conventional thriller,” The Guardian said. “What sets Reunion apart is that it takes place at least equally – perhaps even primarily – in the world of deaf people as in the hearing world …

“The way it switches between spoken and signed language is utterly seamless.”

Echoed The Times: “While the story of a former prisoner slowly piecing their life back together in the face of bureaucratic inadequacy is not a new one, there is something fresh and shocking about seeing it through the eyes of a man who spends his days in a silent world and whose life turns on failings and institutional oversights such as his probation officer forgetting to bring an interpreter just before he is let out onto the streets.”

The Telegraph praised the judicious use of subtitles, sound effects and silence “so that the viewer’s sense of another world that operates on a different frequency is a continual, subtle surprise.

“That has the happy side-effect of creating a show that looks and feels like no other – in the age of streaming superabundance, this is distinctly welcome.”

Streaming from August 12 are the movies The Switch and 3:10 to Yuma as well as the docuseries Killer Couples, which uses re-creations and first-hand accounts to depict how passion drove couples to commit terrible crimes.

Also new, as previewed here, are the linear debuts of Michael Mosley’s Wonders of the Human Body, My Boyfriend Made Me Do It, Tipping Point Australia – Travel Guides Special and Outback Crystal Hunters.