Le Week-End (2013) Reviews

• Less magical than its marketing campaign would suggest: a mostly realistic, darkly touching look at a relationship that's close to breaking point.

  shawneofthedead2014-03-05

  To rekindle the spark in their marriage, an older man takes his wife to the most romantic city in the world for a whirlwind weekend of food and courtship. It seems the perfect premise for a charming if slightly quaint romantic comedy, focused on people who seldom get to take centre stage in Hollywood. Certainly, its marketing campaign has focused on the film's sharp, giddy bursts of joy and emotion, suggesting that love later in life is possible and even glorious. But, make no mistake about it, Le Week-End is far from a sweet and simple exercise in wish-fulfilment. In fact, this is a prickly, frequently painful look at a relationship that works as much as it doesn't: a bond forged through time, heartache and anger that could as easily be mistaken for love as for hate. Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg (Lindsay Duncan) - a couple who have been married for decades - return to Paris, where they had their honeymoon. It soon becomes clear that Nick is desperately keen to make his marriage work again, even as his wife tries - sometimes with great determination, sometimes half-heartedly - to suggest that they go their separate ways. Their son is grown, you see, and there's nothing except years of knowing and being with each other to hold them together. The film is at its finest when Nick and Meg walk the streets of Paris, their bickering and banter hinting at the rot that has set into their marriage. There is love between them, but not the kind that swells the heart with dreams of romance and magic. It's worn, and tattered, and quite possibly fading. They argue over their good-for-nothing son - Nick wants to take care of him, Meg thinks he should be independent - and Meg finds out that Nick is close to losing his job. They say hurtful things because, after long years of marriage, they know just what to say to really twist the knife. Le Week-End, at least in the beginning, is refreshingly free of sentiment, instead taking a long, hard look at the quiet, seemingly inconsequential tragedies that can eat away at a long relationship. The character work is also quite wonderful. Neither Nick nor Meg is easily categorised or stuffed into a stereotype. When Nick meets his old college friend Morgan (Jeff Goldblum) in the streets, he's forced to confront the tiny disappointments that have made up his life. It adds depth to this portrait of a man whose eagerness to please is rooted in his abject terror of being alone. On her part, Meg can come across as almost brutally distant, someone who's withdrawn into herself to shake the feeling that something went quite badly wrong in the life she's leading. Credit is due especially to Broadbent and Duncan, who fearlessly create characters and forge an intriguing chemistry that carry the film through its weaker moments. Broadbent is the tremulous heart of the film, and Duncan its gritty spirit. Together, they make the push and pull between Nick and Meg rich and sad at the same time: these are clearly people who could be better apart, but might not survive the separation. Where Le Week-End falters is in its good but troubled script by Hanif Kureishi. His characters speak in dialogue that's razor-sharp, reeling off lines that are beautifully crafted but - because they occur with such regularity - can sometimes come off as fake or pretentious. It's jarring in a film that's otherwise so determined to be clear-eyed about romance and love in the real world. The film wraps up awkwardly as well, as if it's not quite sure where to leave this couple: to suggest a happy ending would be to undo its entire narrative trajectory, and yet there can be nothing simple about a pair of lives so tangled and complex. Anyone hankering after a sweet, gentle romantic comedy set in the cobblestoned streets of Paris should look elsewhere - Le Week-End is dark and sometimes heartbreaking, suffused as it is with a love that's been broken down by loss, sacrifice and disappointment. It's funny, but often in a bittersweet way, and the relationship at its heart sometimes feels as if it might be beyond salvation. Perversely, that's what makes the film work - but it most certainly won't be to everyone's tastes.

• Not a romantic Parisian comedy, but a sharp reflection on long lasting couple life

  yris20022014-06-22

  Don't expect a romantic comedy from this picture, it has traces of comedy, very short hints of romance, but it is more a sharp, although sometimes really funny, reflection on the difficulty of giving sparkle to a marriage, after 30 years of mutual endurance. There's still love between Meg and Nick, but with so many ups and downs, mainly from Meg's part, who once seems to want to leave her husband, and then is terrified when she does not see him in their bed. And then Nick, terrified of being deserted by her wife, and ready to enjoy every short minute she seems to be willing to love him. It is a movie about the difficulty of living together, mainly when we have to come to terms with the failures of our individual life, of the need to feel that we could individually start everything anew. So, the movie progresses or better drags itself along the cobbled streets of Paris, through the sharp, sometimes brutal bickering of this funny couple, which is not always easy for the viewer to endure, in particular when dialogues seem to be a little pretentious and to be proclaiming some universal truth about marriages and living together, thus sounding a little more didactic and philosophical than realistic. I think the last ten minutes of the movie give a final intense and authentic touch, which could have started or been emphasized earlier. However, I appreciated the effective chemistry of the two main actors, they are carefully devised as not to result stereotyped and their interpretations proved really deep and heartfelt.

• Genuinely absorbing

  willsdomicile2013-10-17

  The trailer hinted at a charming romp around Paris; reviews suggested something darker. In reality it proved to be a very honest, challenging film, which refused to pop love-in-marriage into a convenient genre-box. I can understand completely that it wasn't many people's cup of tea. Certainly not a cosy feel-good movie for the growing sixtysomething demographic that presumably ensured finance for the movie to be made. But it your relationship is resilient – or you are single – there is pleasure to be had in this grown-up story. Yes, it was painful to watch at times, but delightful at others – a bit like life. Yes you wanted to smack them both for being so... annoying. No, you probably wouldn't invite them round to dinner without a certain amount of sighing. But I defy you to work out, before the end, whether they themselves would work out before the end. And I trust it will make a star, at last, of the luminous Lindsey Duncan.

• Unable to Suspend Disbelief

  i-rispin2013-11-01

  How this film has become such catnip to critics is beyond me. The premise- that an experienced lecturer should be forced to resign over telling a girl to spend more time on her studies than her hair is ludicrous, however politically correct an institution might have become. The interaction between the two leads is simply not credible. Meg, Nick's wife tells him over lunch that he is "too cautious". One might make such an observation within the first 5 years of a relationship, but after 30 years of marriage? The bickering, intended to be funny, is neither funny, nor even bickering. To bicker is to good- naturedly argue about stuff which is essentially inconsequential. At various times Meg threatens to leave Nick, and threatens to go off with another man there and then, taunting Nick's insecurity. After exchanging wounding and generalised criticisms of each other, the viewer is expected to believe that within 5 minutes the couple can be kissing passionately. This film is supposed to be a comedy. It is not funny. Nor does it work as drama, save potentially in the imaginations of a small tranche of pretentious academics, and some film critics, to whom this film may say something to them of their lives.

• Wonderful and Candid

  cantake82014-02-11

  Apparently a lot of viewers approached this film with expectations. I had none. I didn't even know about the film prior to attending the screening. These characters sound and move like real humans. This is not a film about Paris, this is a film about people, aging, mistakes regrets, anger, secrets, affection, thorniness, misbehavior and loyalty. I've read the complaints of other lay reviewers and it's apparent that they should make their own films, because it's doubtful anyone else's will live up to their expectations -- especially if critics like it. They should also remember that it is remarkably difficult to pronounce something as snobbish without sounding intensely condescending.