What's Making Us Happy: A guide to your weekend viewing and reading

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Betty Gilpin's performance as Lina in Three Women is making Linda Holmes happy this week. / Starz

This week, the VMAs continued to be the VMAs, Jon Bon Jovi was a mensch, and Taylor Swift made her choice.

Here's what NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.

Girls Will Be Girls

Girls Will Be Girls is a feature film by Indian filmmaker Shuchi Talati that premiered at Sundance this year. It follows a young girl named Mira in a small, Himalayan town — and it's basically a very beautiful story of her adolescence, her growing up, her relationship with her mother. We've seen versions of this film in other geographies, and I was just so excited to see it specifically within a South Asian context. — Bedatri D. Choudhury

Family Style

I just read a great graphic novel called Family Style from writer and cartoonist Thien Pham. It is an autobiographical story about a refugee family who comes from Vietnam to America — it follows their life, their struggles, their joy. It marks time with food — food kicks off memories in a really fun way. It's a sweet, funny, very specific story. There is a scene in this book set in a ‘90s Chuck E. Cheese — and every little detail is perfect. It's a very lovingly told story, and you can really see that in all these little details. — Jordan Morris 

Three Women

Three Women is a Starz series is based on a 2019 book by Lisa Taddeo. It tells the story of three women — Lina (Betty Gilpin), Sloane (DeWanda Wise), and Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy). Lina is a housewife whose marriage has become unsatisfying — her husband doesn't want to kiss her, she has this need for contact and love and sex. Gilpin's performance is extraordinary, and I think the way that her character comes to life is by far the best realized part of the series. At 10 episodes it's probably too long, but I definitely think it is worth checking out for that Betty Gilpin performance. — Linda Holmes

Empire on Tubi

If you're not already familiar, Empire is a show about a family and the record label they run. It stars Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard and guest stars everyone from Leslie Uggams to Courtney Love. I’m mostly hate watching at this point because the show is … not the best. It's melodrama for the sake of melodrama. There are plot lines about gayness, about femininity, about prison that are not handled with the utmost care. But I am deeply invested in the Lyon family — I cried at an episode last week. — Reanna Cruz

More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter

by Linda Holmes

This is your reminder that The Fall Guy, an absolutely terrific action we liked a lot earlier this summer, is now streaming on Peacock. If you missed it back then, I absolutely recommend that you check it out now. Treat yourself!

I talked about it a bit on the show this week, but while Lisa Taddeo’s Starz adaptation of her book Three Women doesn't entirely work, Betty Gilpin's performance as an unloved married woman is a marvel.

With the Emmys coming up on Sunday night, here's your final encouragement to check out the frontrunner Shōgun on Hulu. It's a historical epic of the type they genuinely don't make like they used to (most of the time).

Beth Novey adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment "What's Making Us Happy" for the Web. If you like these suggestions, consider signing up for our newsletter to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.