Critics’ choices for the week ahead
It’s Only the End of the World Québécois prodigy Xavier Dolan lays on a shouting match in extreme close-up. Featuring turns from Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux, the experience is infuriating but it’s quite clearly supposed to be – it’s about hell being the other people you’re related to. 15 cert, 97 min
Patriots Day
Peter Berg directs Mark Wahlberg in this counter-terrorism procedural, based closely on the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013. 15 cert, 130 min
John Wick: Chapter 2
Keanu Reeves returns as the loner assassin with an increasingly bounteous price on his head. 15 cert, 122 min
Hidden Figures
The undervalued contributions of three African-American women to the space race get their due. We’ll find out tonight if this Oscars Best Picture nominee triumphs. PG cert, 127 min
The Founder
Between 1955 and 1984, a milkshake mixer salesman turned McDonald’s from a California burger stand into the Godzilla of fast-food brands. This bright, absorbing biopic, starring Michael Keaton, shows how he did it. 12A cert, 115 min
Moonlight
The exquisite second film from Barry Jenkins is a threepart story about a boy growing up black and gay in Miami, based on an unproduced play by Tarell Alvin McCraney. The cast are a mix of newcomers and familiar faces and the tale they tell holds you then floors you like a slow-motion judo throw. Unmissable. 15 cert, 111 min
Fences
Denzel Washington and Viola Davis star in this superb adaptation of August Wilson’s 1983 play about a struggling family in Fifties Pittsburgh. 12A cert, 140 min The Lego Batman Movie This intensely funny, all-ages superhero romp, spun off from 2014’s
The Lego Movie, crams in enough entertainment for four films of its size. U cert, 107 min Places of the Mind: British Watercolour Landscapes 1850-1950 Drawing on the British Museum’s great watercolour collection, this exhibition looks at the development of this most British of media in the century after Turner, with works by a roll-call of great artists, including Whistler, Burne-Jones and Moore. British Museum, London WC1 (020 7323 8181), until Aug 27 Electricity: The spark of life From the structure of the atom to human brain function, from Frankenstein’s monster to the electric chair, inventors, scientists and artists look at the life-giving and death-dealing mysteries of a force we cannot live without. Wellcome Collection, London (020 7611 2222), until June 25 America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s We tend to think of the Depression era as a period of artistic narrowness, before the American art boom of the Fifties. This exhibition sets out to remedy that impression with works that show artists responding to poverty, political polarisation and a sense of imminent disaster in the build-up to the Second World War. Royal Academy, London W1 (020 7300 8090), until June 4 Tony Cragg: A Rare Category of Objects One of the pre-eminent English sculptors gets his biggest British showing to date, with his often enigmatic forms sited amid the glorious rolling pastures of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, (01924 832 631), next Sat-Sept 3 Light, sound, movement and mirrors: Wayne McGregor’s Tree of Codes, above
Hamlet
Andrew Scott, best known as Moriarty in Sherlock, teams up with director Robert Icke to take on one of the most daunting roles in theatre. Stellar support comes from Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude, and Downton
Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay as Ophelia. Almeida Theatre, London N1 (020 7359 4404), Tues-April 15
Bang Bang
Nicky Henson directs John Cleese’s new adaptation of the 1892 Feydeau farce. The pressure’s on Henson – a former actor who last worked with Cleese on Fawlty Towers – to ensure that every door slam and trouser drop is timed to perfection. Mercury Theatre, Colchester (01206 573 948), until March 11
See Me Now
There are some fascinating personal stories in this play about 11 sex workers, all of whom appear as themselves. The production has a rough and ready charm, but it never really gets under the skin of its characters. Young Vic, London SE1 (020 7922 2922), until March 4
The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams’s breakthrough “memory play” of 1944 is seldom done so well as in John Tiffany’s revival. Cherry Jones is faultless as New Orleans matriarch Amanda Wingfield, by turns nagging and over-intrusive in her dealings with her children. Elbow Over three decades, the oddball Manchester gang have become a uniquely British institution, improbably locating jazzy intricacy and atmospheric sensitivity in the anthemic grandeur of Britpop. O2 Academy Birmingham (elbow.co.uk), Wed, Thurs, and touring Kaiser Chiefs For a group of indie rock rabble rousers, Kaiser Chiefs have managed to keep things interesting over the years, adapting their witty, hooky, anthemic instincts to new musical challenges. Last year’s Stay Together saw them fruitfully collaborating with dance pop producer Brian Higgins. Plymouth Pavilions (kaiserchiefs.com) Mon, and touring