SXSW film festival: Meghann Fahy lands a killer star vehicle with a fun, seat-edge piece of pulp entertainment, playing a woman tasked with killing her date

I have a special place in my heart for a movie that knows what it is, doesn’t mislead and delivers accordingly in a tight 90 minutes. Drop, as indicated by title and trailer, is a one-room thriller for the digital natives: what would happen if your phone was barraged by mysterious AirDropped memes telling you to kill your date, or your family dies? It’s a simple premise familiar to anyone who has received an unwanted dick pic on the subway, and one that writer/director Christopher Landon drills into with fresh and invigorating precision.

And one elevated by two well-cast leads in Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, who both keep their cards just close enough to their chests. Sklenar, recently in It Ends With Us, once again convincingly plays the nice, understanding guy to a woman who has survived domestic abuse; sweet and self-effacing, he’s more “fuck” or “marry” material than “kill”. But this is Fahy’s movie as Violet, a therapist for survivors of domestic violence and a single mother to a five-year-old son. She is no stranger to it; the film opens with a scene one could assume is a flash forward, with a bloody and bruised Violet crawling limply away from her late husband, who brandishes a loaded gun.

Estate agent who quit after being denied a ‘symbolically significant’ seat was right to view it as demotion, panel says

Allocating a senior employee a desk that they believe to be associated with a junior position amounts to a breach of workplace laws, an employment tribunal has ruled.

The panel said being made to sit somewhere in the office where junior staff work could “logically” lead a senior employee to conclude they have been demoted.

Estate agent who quit after being denied a ‘symbolically significant’ seat was right to view it as demotion, panel says

Allocating a senior employee a desk that they believe to be associated with a junior position amounts to a breach of workplace laws, an employment tribunal has ruled.

The panel said being made to sit somewhere in the office where junior staff work could “logically” lead a senior employee to conclude they have been demoted.

Ministers run away from a wealth tax and then concoct a punitive benefits system in the name of growth. They have made that choice and it’s immoral

Whether it’s the front pages or your Uncle Frank’s Facebook posts, you’ll have done well lately to avoid news about upcoming disability benefits cuts. After months of speculation, the government is reportedly set to pull £6bn from the “welfare budget” ahead of its spring statement, with some Labour MPs already threatening revolt.

Read much of the commentary and you’d believe this was all about the public purse – see talk about “savings” and changing “global factors” such as trade tariffs and the war in Ukraine. And yet, dig a little deeper and Labour’s proposed reforms appear to be based not just on budgeting, but a belief: paid work is a virtue (and people who don’t perform it deserve a worse life than everyone else). As Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, said last week: “There is a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work.”

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist. Her latest book, Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life, is available to pre-order at the Guardian Bookshop