'The Weekend Away' trips and falls repeatedly
Netflix
Trash can be dumb, but it can’t be annoying. And it has to be fun. “The Weekend Away” undeniably achieves the first two adjectives, but the last one is very debatable. Unless your idea of fun is groan, roll eyes, repeat.
You may have noticed that Leighton Meester (“Gossip Girl,” “The Roommate”) hasn’t been given many movie opportunities, and this awkward thriller isn’t going to change that: In several scenes her emotional register disconnects from the moment as Beth, a London-based new mom visiting her best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe) in Croatia for, you guessed it, the weekend. But the pair get just one night out before the trip turns away from bonding and escape and toward “Did my notoriously unreliable pal vanish on purpose, or did something terrible happen?”
The way this all unfolds makes it very hard to understand writer Sarah Alderson (adapting her novel) saying that the movie is a salute to female friendship. She at least populates this world with no shortage of potentially shady characters and red herrings, including the comically suspicious owner of Kate and Beth’s residence (Adrian Pezdirc) and an always-available cab driver (Ziad Bakri) who doesn’t hesitate to hold someone near the edge of a building to elicit information. Speaking of the edges of things, and that headline: There are so, so many instances of tripping and falling here. Not, like, 50, but three major incidents is way too many, and unintentional laughs are not what you want when a character dies.
It’s such a pleasure to dive into something you know will just be juicy and mysterious. Even if it’s silly, as long as it keeps you guessing a bit and doesn’t insult your intelligence then you can stamp it “Good time had by all” and move on. The problem is when characters turn from credible to Lifetime-level sleazy, and any attempt to tackle communication challenges between friends or spouses (Beth’s husband, Rob, played by Luke Norris, is back in London with their baby daughter) becomes more nonsensical by the second. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if Meester’s performance held the movie’s center while the walls seem to close in around Beth (the movie recalls the recent, likewise-underwhelming “Beckett”). Instead she’s just another bad choice hacking away at breezy enjoyment until it’s rubble.
C-
ARE YOU A “SAVED BY THE BELL” FAN?
Order “Zack Morris Lied 329 Times! Reassessing every ridiculous episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’ … with stats” (featuring interviews with 22 cast members, plus the co-founder of Saved by the Max and the creator of “Zack Morris is Trash”)
GET 100 STORIES FOR JUST $4.99