In the capable hands of these fine filmmakers and actors, even its most bitter observations about life and aging are nearly always reliably balanced by moments of warmth, understanding and out-and-out screwball humor.
When Michell is on his game, as he definitely is with Le Week-End, he unearths small, invaluable and even profound truths about the human condition that are often as inspiring as they are devastating.
They are two intelligent, sophisticated people searching for the spicy condiment they need to keep their relationship fresh during a bittersweet weekend in Paris, and, like the film that frames them, they are smart, substantial and enchanting.
Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are superb as the couple, who use the occasion to drop bombs on each other.
The result? An accomplished, bittersweet drama that's more bitter than sweet.
For all its flaws - in fact, perhaps because of them - Le Week-End is a work borne from, and provoking, real feeling.
Sophisticated, sharp and funny, Le Week-End achieves an unusual coup: it’s a film about two older characters that is neither deeply gloomy (like, say, Amour) nor twinkly and cheerily upbeat.
The film is imbued with an engaging mix of warmth and prickliness by the lovely, lived-in performances of Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan.
Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny.
Michell’s handling of the relationship between the two is touching in how little judgment he passes.
This is a romantic drama film, with comedy elements and it contains themes including philosophy, marriage, jealousy and friendship. I found it quite amusing from the start - not uproariously hilarious or anything like that but moderately amusing, yes. I found myself feeling endeared to Jim Broadbents character, Nick - being prone to blunders and being very grumpy, somewhat similar to Victor Meldrew (although ok, maybe not quite THAT extreme!). Watching his frustration come out through finding out things haven't gone so well regarding his planned accommodation in Paris, with the French trying to help him out, I could imagine how irritated I may have been, had I been in his situation. Suffice to say, there is definitely a presence of dry wit in this film. The film features some nice shots of Paris - the city centre, the Eiffel tower, aerial shots of the city etc. I reckon that most married couples who have gone through a stage when they feel that they may be drifting apart, or/and that they wind each other up moreso than enjoy each others company, will be able to relate to this film, to one extent or the other. I've never been married but I enjoyed it more than I'd, realistically, expected to. Cast wise, other than Jim Broadbent as the slightly miserly, somewhat stubborn Nick, Lindsay Duncan plays Meg. She is not afraid to counter Nicks barbed comments and the two of them do somewhat 'bounce off each other', wit wise. There are some particularly amusing examples of her dialogue, such as when she asks Nick 'why do you have your constipated face on?!' clearly there's someone who knows him all TOO well lol!. Joking aside, you can see there is a chemistry between them on screen but they do also, of course, wind each other up something rotten as well!. I liked that it seemed we, as viewers, were being given a glimpse in to them attempting to relive their younger years in slightly later life - there's something quite uplifting and positive about it, which makes us hope that things can work out well for the two of them ultimately. Those two aside, other cast members include Jeff Goldblum as Morgan - an old, well to do friend of Nicks who they bump in to and who invites them to an event. Content wise, the film contains ocassional quite mild sex references, an instance where blood is shown in relation to an accident but its not very frightening and some strong language is used. Characters are shown drinking and smoking but its not depicted in a particularly postive, or glamorous, way as such - its mostly a quite mundane film, as far as the tone is concerned. Surprisingly, it was given a 15 rating in the UK, which seems a little strong in my view and I can only presume is down to the few swear words. The music played during this film is quite remiscent of the sort of tinned music you sometimes hear in hotel elevators and the like - light piano based tune, slightly jazzy ones, I suppose to go along with the whole romantic element of Paris. It isn't a particularly stylised film a la Woody Allen or that sort of thing but I found it surprisingly entertaining all the same - if anything then probably because it doesn't take itself too seriously and it isn't overly stylised (to a point of pretentiousness). I'd recommend this film as I found it quite funny and entertaining, with a good cast, good cinematography, a good use of music and overall an enjoyable watch.
What we have here is a story of an ordinary couple who has aged after spending many decades together so their journey in Paris after 30 years since their honeymoon is nothing like in the past. They fight, they laugh, they cry, they have problems with sex...just like any other couple of their age in real life. Besides some weird sequences and an unconvincing character played dy Jeff Goldblum (he's great performing but his role is bizarre), Le Week-End is a good film to relax after a long week.
When Nick and Meg revisit Paris for the first time since their honeymoon to rekindle their relationship they find the truth about their feelings for each other may be irreparable. What starts out as a witty Woody Allen-esque comedy of manners takes a turn for the pretentious at the half way mark and doesn't really recover. Lovely performances make it worth a watch but it feels like a missed opportunity.
A charming, and affecting look into an elerly couples eventful weekend in Paris. Lindsay Duncan is absolutely phenominal, she demans screentime, and she delivers a performance that is believeable, smart and and heartfelt. dr Paris has never looked this wonderful, and the score makes it feel like you are walking beside them, laughing with them, arguing amongst them. Well worth it!
This is "Before Midnight" for the retirement-age set. Unlike the couple in that other film, Nick and Meg don't shriek incessantly at each other about all the things they've been pissed off about for 8 or 10 years. Rather (because they're older? More rational? English?) they pick at some well-worn weaknesses as they also mull over their marriage and their respective lots in life. And as they companionably gad about In Paris, which of course makes it more entertaining. This is the kind of role Jim Broadbent so often plays to perfection, and Lindsay Duncan also is great as an older woman trying to maintain her edge. Jeff Goldblum adds some fizz as a guy who seems like an older version of the funny/annoying dork he played in "The Big Chill." I like the way this film portrays late-in-life complexities ... bleak at times, funny at times: thought-provoking.
This is a film about an aging married couple whose trip to Paris is designed to spark a declining relationship. It will disappoint those who expect a geriatric romantic comedy, but it is intelligent and superbly acted. Lindsay Duncan, long a fine stage actress, makes a stellar switch to film. And Paris looks lovely. If you have patience with people who vacation in Paris and who still ask"Is this all there is?" you may like the film a lot.
Oh Paris, je t’aime! What do you get when you mix the influence of French new wave director Jean-Luc Godard, the acting talents of Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan, the sturdy direction of Roger Michell and poised writing of Hanif Kureishi? What feels like the unofficial fourth entry to the Before Sunrise independent film trilogy, Le Week-End is a film that could easily be mistaken as the extended look at the lives of Jesse and Celine, years after their fateful meeting in Vienna. There is something exquisite and magical with films set in Paris, a city that is most commonly known as the ‘city of love’. And although Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick Burroughs (Jim Broadbent) choose to revisit Paris after thirty years of marriage and re-live their honeymoon after a long and challenging life together, things don’t exactly go how each of them planned. Instead, what surfaces is a film budding with sophistication, film history, and bittersweet revelations that showcase a world of fading lovers and seasoned couples. Le Week-End is a film set in the fine wine capital of the world. Surrounded by couples holding hands, sharing moments of pure love and wonder, Meg and Nick have some serious marital issues to face, but instead decide to lather over them with the spectacular sights and sounds of the Eiffel Tower, the River Seine and upper-class dining and accommodations. Both highly irritated with each other’s approach to life, their children and their relationship as a whole, Meg and Nick use the vacation as a means to reconnect. However, the couple unexpectedly run-into one of Nick’s former student’s and now renown author Morgan (Jeff Goldblum). Morgan invites Meg and Nick to a dinner party to celebrate the release of Morgan’s latest literary achievement. However, Meg and Nick get a lot more than just dinner among friends, and instead their evening turns into a plethora of ultimatums and heartfelt realities. The grand beauty of Le Week-End lies in the chemistry between Broadbent and Duncan. As two educators in their own sense, Nick a university professor and Meg a teacher, the two honeymooners surely belong to a class of people who are in constant pursuit of life experiences. Sadly, the couple, who have lived their lives catering to the needs of others, can’t seem to get rid of their overly mature son, who has found his way back to basement of their home. Torn between what is right and what is necessary, Nick and Meg’s parental approach is clearly outlined in the short snippets of calls Nick receives from their son. Thankfully, the heart of Le Week-End is easily found, not in the commentary of parenting, but in the depth of fleeting love, and Duncan and Broadbent share a hate to love for one another that could only be seen in some of the misunderstood, post modern works of European artists almost sixty years prior. Meg and Nick use their thirty year wedding anniversary as a muse towards re-connecting. Meg, seeing the vacation as a ‘last chance at love’ for her and her husband, adopts a very go with the flow, careless attitude towards their spending and experiences in the Parisian city. Early on, it is clear that Nick is the money saver and principle earner in the relationship. While Nick sees Paris as an escape from their mundane lives in Birmingham, he also sees it as an opportunity to indulge in a weekend filled with romance and wild, kinky sex with his gorgeous wife–whom he still very much loves and longs for. Meg on the other hand is mostly repulsed with her husband, describing him as “making her blood boil like no body else’. Where Nick replies that that indeed is “the sign of a deep connection”. Essentially, life happens. For every good, there is a bad, for every high, there is a low. Le Week-End showcases these highs and lows, few and far between. While the couple travels together, they are mostly a duo of outsiders with one another. From the moment we meet the rambunctious Meg and patient Nick, we experience a dialogue between two people who are lost in translation, although, some how, both individuals find themselves speaking the same language. The witty screenplay by Kureishi (an author whose novel The Buddha of Suburbia was a novel I read in University) allows the internal thoughts of the characters to be read easily by the viewers and allow the actions of our characters to speak volumes. A city roaming with mimes, colourful characters and whacky personas, Meg and Nick find themselves lusting for the city of Paris to revive their emotions and expectations of one another. It may not seem it, but aside from the fury and disagreements that Meg and Nick deal with, Le Week-End reminds viewers that “love is the only interesting thing” left in life, especially when you reach the age of our cinematic specimens. The answer may be love, but the factors determining this answer are the tools for the equation.
LE-WEEKEND truly aspires for depth and relevance but ultimately falls into the easy cliches that we associate with the typical Hollywood RomCom. This is a film that ultimately feels false and forced. You'll never believe for a minute that these two boomers played by Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan have been in the same room together let alone married for over 30 years. As the film plods along from obvious plot point to obvious plot point, director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi try very hard to makes us believe how "genuine" this all is but their talents prevent them from adding any true insight. LE-WEEKEND is actually more frustrating than a RomCom because it is never engaging, witty or charming, just false at every turn.
A simplest movie, which tells the story of an old couple from Birmingham who decides to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in Paris. Like all the married couples these two as well not exceptional for facing all the ups and downs during their life together. So this story spells some of their tragic and happy moments of past and present. Nicely written script, it was very plain and narrow. Everything in the movie was kept uncomplicated including portrayal of characters. Jeff Goldblum's cameo was added more flavour to the movie. His entry was at the right time to spice up the momentum. The adventurous mischief of the two couples in the city of love was the movie's fun parts. Apart from that, uncompromising dialogue between them briefs their relationship difficulties. One more movie to add to the list where the old guys rule. It is based on a precious subject, kinda rare in today's cinema. A delightful movie to watch. Began with a normal pace, then later geared up till the end. With a minimum cast the movie did not cost much, but there is no compromise in quality. Very much more enjoyable which deals with a sensitive issue of a long married couple. It is a good pick for the family audience to watch on weekends.
The trailer makes the film looks funnier and more jovial than it is. Instead, it’s the story of a long-time married couple hitting their retirement years, realizing that they might not be a perfect match any longer. It’s slightly uncomfortable in places, but it’s also fun – at least when Jeff Goldblum is on the screen.
You know how they say a movie can grow on you ? Well, they are right. This movie grew so that I ended up despising it. So boring and pretentious it was, with nothing to say. It was hard to hear (low sound). It was hard to look out, even with gorgeous Paris in the background. I don’t care what the critics say, this movie was a zero for me.
“Le Week End” is a charming, warm and deeper than it purports to be film written by Hanef Kureishi with directorial credits going to Roger Michell. The film stars Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan and, in the latter half, Jeff Goldblum. Although ostensibly the story of a British married couple of 30 years celebrating their anniversary in Paris, it is much more than that. Its British umbrella goes beyond that country’s culture to cause any long married couple of any nationality to easily identify with the problems they face as they try to recapture or maybe even create the relationship they each want with the other. Ms. Duncan and Mr. Broadbent dominate the screen as they share their innermost feelings and disappointments in a movie that seems to capture the essence of the “Best Marigold Hotel” film and a tamer and warmer “Who’s Afraid of Virginia ****. Kureisi’s dialogue is meaningful and profound as the two principal characters encounter the ups and downs of marital life and the burdens and benefits it offers. I give the film an 8 and suggest that the City of Paris be given an honorable mention in the credits for it certainly plays a meaningful role in the lives of this engaging and complicated couple.
A bitter sweet drama that is also funny. Jim Broadbent and (especially) Lindsay Duncan are utterly convincing as a jaded married couple returning to Paris to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Hanif Kureishi's screenplay is wonderfully observant in the way it explores the complexity of emotions that long term marriages are prone to. I defy anyone who has been married as long as this couple not to recognise themselves in at least some aspects of the fine writing. The compromises, broken dreams, regrets, recriminations, disappointments, triumphs and failures all come under accurate scrutiny and the performers add the nuances that makes the whole thing ring with the sting of truth. This doesn't mean, however, that there aren't some bizarre and unlikely interludes. I really don't think your average 50 year old is going to attempt to do a runner from a restaurant, but these are forgivable and still enjoyable moments in an intelligent, if at times, rather sad tale. As an aside, and almost by default, the film highlights how travel and weekend breaks (specifically here) can be fraught and stressful, in contradiction to the fun they are meant to be. The film ends on an up beat note, but like the emotional roller coaster ride that the couple themselves are on, this is just an UP moment in the rich and ever changing tapestry that is called life.
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