What’s on this weekend? From Good Boys to bad memories

The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.

TELEVISION: Mindhunter: season 2

Daniel Fienberg in The Hollywood Reporter:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“David Fincher's Netflix's serial killer drama returns for a second season of creepy interrogations, weighty conversations and strong performances…[season 2 is] “a confident and tantalising return, whetting my appetite for a weekend binge and making me wonder how much bigger this show's profile could be under different circumstances.”

On Netflix from 16 August

MOVIE: Good Boys

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian:

“Some massive laughs, a huge Stephen Merchant cameo and the most impressive school play on film since Wes Anderson’s Rushmore are all on offer in this very funny teen – or rather tween – comedy. It’s a bad-taste kids’ adventure that welds the spirit of The Goonies and Stranger Things with Superbad and Booksmart… There are some outrageously sized gags and a genuinely sad and insightful moment when the Beanbag Boys wonder why exactly they are friends and how long their friendship will last.”

In cinemas 16 August

BOOK: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Anna Aslansan in The Spectator:

“Yoko Ogawa’s new novel takes us to a Japanese island where things keep disappearing: ribbons, birds, musical instruments, fruit. People, too, are at the mercy of the Memory Police, an efficient lot hunting for those who can’t shake off their memories. Each disappearance involves not just getting rid of the physical object, but also of every trace of it in everyone’s mind. The unnamed narrator’s mother is among the disappeared, but things she collected remain in the house where the daughter still lives, writing novels about people losing something.”

Released 15th August

SHOW: Oedipus

Ann Treneman in The Times:

“It’s a superb interpretation of Sophocles’s story that feels modern and timeless. It oozes confidence, and Hildegard Bechtler’s open-plan office and kitchen set is sleek and inviting. The family dinner scene is particularly riveting. The children are Kennedy-esque, all hair and teeth and preposterous confidence. Their grandmother Merope, with her grey bun and taciturn ways, is played by Frieda Pittoors with total authority.”

Showing 14-17 September at King’s Theatre, Edinburgh Festival