Thanks to the Chunnel and relaxed EU customs, it is relatively easy for a late-middle-aged British couple to pop over to Paris for a romantic getaway—unfortunately. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, but they make the trip nonetheless. The pent-up resentment will flow freely in Roger Michell’s “Le Week-End,” which screens during the 51st New York Film Festival.
Old lefty lit professor Nick Burrows’s only success in life was marrying his wife Meg, but she never lets him forget that she was and still is well out of his league. The magic ran dry quite a while ago, but recent pressures have only made matters worse.
For Nick, this sentimental trip will be a desperate attempt to renew their relationship, but his wife may have different ideas. Probably the last person he needs to run into would be Morgan, his vastly more successful former hipster protégé, yet that is exactly what happens.
“Le Week-End” is very definitely a writer’s film, completely driven by its often-caustic dialogue. It seems like screenwriter Hanif Kureishi takes sadistic pleasure from old put-upon Nick’s discomfort, forcing him into one dignity-stripping conversation after another. This necessarily means that Meg gets most of the film’s sharpest wince-inducing lines.
Frankly, you have to sympathize with poor Nick on some level. A mere 90 minutes of Meg’s withering banter is exhausting, so the prospect of a lifetime of marriage with her makes the head reel. Still, Kureishi maintains the consistency of their voices and scores a number of rueful laughs.
Perhaps the viewers’ best friend during “Le Week-End” is Jeremy Sams, whose elegant jazz-influenced score (featuring trumpeter Freddie Gavita) gives us something warm and agreeable to hold on to. Even though they are radically dissimilar films, the combination of muted trumpet and Parisian streets by night immediately calls to mind Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” and its Miles Davis soundtrack.
As Meg Burrows, Lindsay Duncan wields Kureishi’s cutting lines like a scimitar. Yet, Jim Broadbent’s hangdog face draws Michell’s focus like a magnet. They spark together, but it is still hard to believe the extreme emotional disparity of their union. To lighten the mood, Michell turns Jeff Goldblum loose as Morgan, lifting all restraints on his shticky mannerisms with rather amusing results.
It is pleasant to soak up the film’s Paris locations while listening to the moody but swinging score. In a way, it provides a tart rejoinder to films like “Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet,” reminding audiences that seniors are not always cute.
Well-crafted but somewhat overwritten, “Le Week-End” is recommended for fans of talky relationship films when it screens on Monday Oct. 7, at the Walter Reade Theater, as a main-slate selection of this year’s NYFF.
Joe Bendel writes about independent film and lives in New York. To read his most recent articles, please visit www.jbspins.blogspot.com
‘Le Week-End’
Director: Roger Michell
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan
Run Time: 93 minutes
Release Date: Nov. 1
Not rated
Reviewer gives this film 3 out of 5 stars.