Le Week-End

movie review le weekend

"Le Week-End"

Let us use the arrival of “Le Week-End”—a wistfully rendered yet often barbed account of longtime marrieds who find themselves dissatisfied and drifting apart while on an anniversary trip to Paris—to salute a filmmaker who rarely gets the credit he deserves: Roger Michell .

At 57, Michell is the youngest and most unsung of a trio of distinctively British directors whose film work began receiving global attention in the ’90s. Mike Newell made his presence known with 1994’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, scoring Oscar nods for best picture and screenplay. John Madden topped that feat with 1998’s “ Shakespeare in Love “, winning seven Oscars including best picture. Michell’s breakout arrived in 1999, when his romantic comedy “ Notting Hill ” turned into one of the highest-grossing British films of all time with a worldwide box office of $364 million. His involvement, however, was somewhat overshadowed by the sight of Julia Roberts playing a version of herself as a renowned actress opposite a smitten Hugh Grant . While there have been other hits among Michell’s 11 films—his first, an adaptation of Jane Austen’s “ Persuasion ” in 1995, was a well-received TV movie released in theaters overseas—there also have been notable misses.

Most recently, his “ Hyde Park on Hudson ” was done in by the unpalatable displays of FDR’s extracurricular love life. But the biopic at least succeeded on a smaller scale as an intriguing private portrait of a public marriage. Specifically, that of an insecure King George VI ( Samuel West ), the stutterer who was the subject of “ The King's Speech “, and his nagging wife ( Olivia Colman ), the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, as they visited the president’s upstate New York retreat as World War II threatens. That royal gem of a union, as well as the interplay between West’s King and Bill Murray’s FDR, managed to save the show.

As exemplified by that effort as well as 2002’s “ Changing Lanes “, a road-rage drama, and 2006’s “Venus”, about an aged actor who lusts after an insolent young woman, Michell is often at his best when dealing with characters who find themselves under stress or attempting to seek common ground with an onscreen counterpart. 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.

Michell also has great taste in collaborators. “Le Week-End” marks his fourth pairing with screenwriter Hanif Kureishi —they managed to earn the late Peter O'Toole his eighth and final shot at an acting Oscar with “Venus”. Similarly, they find themselves working alongside two durable acting pros with notable depth and presence, owlishly avuncular Jim Broadbent , 64, who won an Oscar as the caretaker husband in “ Iris “, and bewitchingly flinty Lindsay Duncan , 63, who was fabulous as the eccentric mum in “ About Time “. Simple stereotypes are not what these two performers do.

Yet their domestic situation will be recognizable to anyone who has savored the comfortable familiarity that comes with a decades-long union but also has resented its predictability. With performers this seasoned, all it takes is the opening scene aboard a train to see where this journey to re-invigorate 30-year marriage is going. Meg has her nose in a book while trying to ignore Nick, who is checking over itineraries and other travel material while worrying about where he stashed their converted Euros.

Duncan’s likeness to French actress Julie Delpy isn’t the only reason that it is easy to think of “Le Week-End” as a twilight time version of Richard Linklater’s “ Before Midnight ” and its two romantic predecessors. They all offer long, often intense verbal exchanges between partners in a relationship against a glorious scenic backdrop.

Once the couple arrives at their destination, the conversation initially turns comedic when Meg takes one look at the depressing cut-rate dump of a room that Nick has booked and observes with disgust, “It’s beige!” Off they go in cab to a high-end hotel complete with Eiffel Tower view and a fully stocked pricey mini-bar. Told that Tony Blair once stayed in their suite, Nick opines, “As long as they changed the sheets.”

Where she is bold, decisive, impractical and reckless, he is fussy, clumsy, fretful and tentative. He wants to use this occasion to finally nail down what tiles to put in their redone bathroom. She hungers for fine food, great wine and excitement beyond the everyday norm.

Given they are both academics—Nick is a philosophy professor, no less—the talk gushes forth as they visit picturesque museums, bistros, book shops, churches and cemeteries. They argue about their wastrel son who wants to move back home. Nick reveals he is about to be pushed into early retirement at work. Meg tops that news with the admission that she has considered spending her golden years without him. As hurtful as she can be and as vulnerable as he can be, Broadbent and Duncan make sure that flickers of love and affection ignite now and then in between spats over having to use the same toothbrush.

Sex, of course, rears its head. And rather bluntly, too. As Nick, who is clearly hoping to get lucky on this jaunt, notes, “For the last five, 10 years, your vagina has become sort of a closed book.” He then suggests taking their lovemaking “into another dimension,” even suggesting they pretend to be other people.

Counters Meg, “I might do it for you later if you stay awake.” She teases him in cruel fashion until he retreats, listening to Bob Dylan in boxer shorts with his ear buds in, and guzzling alcohol. They do make fine co-conspirators, however, as Meg pulls off a scheme to skip out of paying a steep bill at a restaurant and they passionately kiss on the street in celebration.

The climax of the movie arrives when Nick runs into a pal, a well-off American author named Morgan who now lives in Paris with his new pregnant wife. As played by Jeff Goldblum at his most grand-gesturing Goldblum-iest, his entrance into the movie is akin to throwing a lit Roman candle into a room. It’s at a dinner party in honor of Morgan’s latest tome that Nick and Meg go off on their own little adventures of self-discovery, and leave perhaps with a renewed commitment. Or maybe not. In any case, the final images suggested by a Godard movie will put a smile on your face and at least provide hope.

movie review le weekend

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

movie review le weekend

  • Charlotte Leo as Dominique Ertel
  • Jeff Goldblum as Morgan
  • Denis Sebbah as Christopher Aragues
  • Jim Broadbent as Nick Burrows
  • Olly Alexander as Michael
  • Sophie- Charlotte Husson as Plaza's Receptionist
  • Brice Beaugier as Robert
  • Xavier De Guillebon as Jean-Pierre Degremont
  • Lindsay Duncan as Meg Burrows
  • Marie-France Alvarez as Victoire La Chapelle
  • Hanif Kureishi

Cinematography

  • Nathalie Durand
  • Roger Michell

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Edelstein on Le Week-End : Unbelievably Marvelous, in Light of Its Depressing Trajectory

Portrait of David Edelstein

Le Week-End is a marital ­disintegration–reintegration drama that opens with a dose of frost and vinegar and turns believably sweet—and unbelievably marvelous, in light of what had seemed a depressing trajectory. Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan play an aging, not-affluent British couple grabbing a fast weekend in Paris. Their tatty hotel appalls her so much she impulsively checks into a luxury one—which appalls her husband, who has yet to reveal he was forced to resign his professorship over a run-in with a student. He would like to touch her, but she quivers with displeasure when he tries. (“I’m a phobic object,” he concludes.) The not-so-sub subtext is that love doesn’t last. She sees his weakness and inability to get out of himself and truly care for her; he sees a still-beautiful woman who’s moving beyond his grasp.

Hanif Kureishi wrote it, Roger Michell directed; they collaborated on the creepy drama The Mother, and neither is a squishy humanist. But they’re working with actors whose firm masks yield glimpses of desperate, capacious souls. Jeremy Sams’s modest jazz score takes the edge off the severity, mellows it, signals a middle ground between hope and despair.

The wild card of Le Week-end is the guy they bump into: the superb Jeff Goldblum (as a solicitous American academic with enviable crossover success). At first he seems creepily intimate, a phony. Gradually you realize he’s just madly ­insecure—a Goldblum-esque blurter. At a party, they meet his young second wife, for whom he’s unsuited, and a son from a first marriage whom he loves but barely knows. They see what pathetic, lucky souls they are. I don’t know how Kureishi pulled the last act out of his hat. But then, true artists don’t always know where the magic comes from, either.

*This article appeared in the March 10, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

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The Weekend Reviews

movie review le weekend

It makes pretty good use of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the story of Nick and Meg is certainly an interesting one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

movie review le weekend

If you want to see an honest story beautifully written and brought to life by a stellar cast, I recommend you seek it out.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 13, 2020

movie review le weekend

As moving as it is engaging and astute.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 29, 2019

movie review le weekend

For better or for worse, Le Week-End relies a great deal on its two central performers, and fortunately Broadbent and Duncan are in fine fettle here.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 5, 2019

movie review le weekend

Confuses a one-dimensional, borderline sadistic view of the mitigations that come with ageing to their actual reality (which is surely a lot more nuanced and less miserable)!

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 8, 2018

movie review le weekend

Wonderful performances (including a fun but quite "huh?" supporting turn from Jeff Goldblum) and nice aesthetics help make Le Week-end a passable trip to Paris,

Full Review | Oct 10, 2018

movie review le weekend

The script falters as domestic drama turns to contrived farce, and the couple runs out on an expensive dinner check. What is this, Frances Ha?

Full Review | Aug 31, 2018

movie review le weekend

The film's uncomfortable emotional tone is well balanced and heightened by the majestic architecture and skies of the city, a city they can't truly enjoy until its almost too late.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2018

movie review le weekend

The sublime talents of British thespians Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan allow the comedic drama "Le Week-End" to travel beyond cheap cliches and tired road-trip gags into more thought-provoking territory.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 7, 2018

movie review le weekend

This isn't just about sex, it's a film about ageing, and the slights and delights of realising your life has never been your own. Unlike many Hollywood films, it doesn't make older people look angry or infantile. How refreshing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2018

movie review le weekend

The banter is clever, yet so candid that the audience feels a bit sheepish. We're overhearing a wholly believable private conversation; these two are most definitely not on their best behavior. No company manners here.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 3, 2017

Beautifully written and performed, there are biting truths here that will resonate with anyone who's lived in a long term relationship.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2017

movie review le weekend

It's rare to see a film about late middle-age, which is neither pure escapism nor about people at the end of their rope.

Full Review | Aug 15, 2017

movie review le weekend

Le Week-End isn't nearly the comic lark the trailer would have you believe. It's much better than that: a poignant look at a relationship whose embers of love are barely glowing, but whose principals still like each other too much to split up

Full Review | Original Score: 4 of 5 | Apr 18, 2016

movie review le weekend

The film hits the mark on couples struggling to find that balance between individuality and union with Broadbent and Duncan providing pitch-perfect performances.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 9, 2016

Great acting and a great script from the hand of Hanif Kureishi. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 12, 2015

A movie that evoques the nouvelle vague, with discusions and quick romantic encounters, where Paris becomes a character and rebeling is part of staying alive. [Full review in Spanish]

Although the film is profound and moving indeed, one does wonder how a viewer of a certain age might respond to it.

Full Review | Oct 8, 2015

movie review le weekend

Despite its rough turns and bumpy exposition, Le Week-End is absolutely a trip worth taking, full of moving moments and well-earned laughs.

Full Review | Jan 6, 2015

A loosely structured but acutely observed relationships movie with a wide streak of painful comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 6, 2015

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Film of the Week: Le Week-End

By Jonathan Romney on October 30, 2013

I honestly can't remember seeing a more off-putting trailer than the one for Le Week-End . It features Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan flitting around the streets of Paris, lashings of breezy accordion, and then the stars—with Jeff Goldblum, and with Duncan in an amusing hat—imitating the Madison dance from Godard’s Band of Outsiders . It all suggests excruciating whimsy, a coy entertainment for Francophile viewers d'un certain âge —people, perhaps, like Duncan's character Meg Burrows, whose choice of reading on the Eurostar is Muriel Barbery's soft-philosophy best-seller The Elegance of the Hedgehog .

In truth, the trailer may not be a radical misrepresentation of Le Week-End , but conversely, it doesn't catch the distinctive blend of jollity and industrial-strength sourness of this latest collaboration between director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi. Over the last decade, Kureishi—once the hip young tearaway of British film and literature—has proved to be an insightful analyst of the discontents of aging, collaborating with Michell on a series of simple, at times austere vignettes that are certainly the director's best films. Le Week-End may seem a light divertissement compared to The Mother (03, about an elderly woman rediscovering sex with a youngish stud—played by Daniel Craig!) and Venus (06, in which an old man, Peter O'Toole, is fixated on a teenager). But Le Week-End 's melancholy and sometimes downright bitter disillusionment are plain to see behind the ooh-la-la veneer.

The story follows a late-middle-aged British couple, Meg and Nick Burrows, celebrating their anniversary with a weekend in Paris. She's a schoolteacher wearily and more or less fondly indulging her husband, often sniping at him with an acidity that suggests her regret at missed romantic opportunities and at her squandered intellectual potential. And he's a career academic beset with nostalgia for the glories that seemed to lie before him in his Cambridge youth; he now faces an ignoble career end, forced to take early retirement.

Oh, well, they'll always have Paris—but dream holidays have a way of bringing out a lifetime's worth of resentment. The pair arrive at their drab Montmartre hotel; Meg recoils at the beige decor and insists on going somewhere fancier. They take a cab, which whizzes them through the city, the Arc de Triomphe wheeling over their heads. For a nasty moment, it feels as if we're in one of Claude Lelouch's more touristic productions—which is the ironic point, since harsh reality quickly elbows glossy fantasy aside. The couple check in at a much fancier establishment, which means a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower and a towering tariff to match. But just as Nick is never quite able to put down the plastic bag he drags around, the couple can't leave behind their home lives. He thinks this is a good time to discuss their bathroom tiles; she can't resist laying her marital discontent on the table.

Being a British film written by a leading novelist/playwright, it's only to be expected that Le Week-End is somewhat talky; at times, the Paris locations come across largely as backdrops for the dialogue. And while the dialogue is pithy, even brutal, the lines aren't always polished zingers: Meg moans about the prospect of his “partially erect sausage”; Nick complains that “over the last five or six years, your vagina has become a closed book.” The repartee can feel creaky as much as brittle, but it does evoke the way an intelligent but intellectually and emotionally exhausted couple might snipe at each other—and the language takes on real vigor as delivered by Broadbent and Duncan.

You absolutely believe in them as a couple. There's no one like Broadbent for looking and sounding flattened by life, and for suggesting a rattlesnake acerbity beneath a soft, amiable exterior; it’s easy to imagine how a man so seemingly affable, yet razor smart, might have attracted a woman like Meg in her no doubt chilly youthful prime. Duncan is astute casting: for all Meg's now comfortable weariness, she has the demeanor of a sexual and intellectual alpha female who's married beneath her, with all the disappointment and barely concealed rage that implies.

Duncan is superb with her weary detachment, mixing a tolerant fondness into the sometimes shockingly overt contempt that Meg shows Nick—although that seems to be part of the tender sadomasochistic bond they share. There's also a curious resonance—perhaps accidental, but eerie nonetheless—for anyone who's recently watched Before Midnight , the third part of Richard Linklater's romantic trilogy, in which the cold truths of marital fatigue came home to roost. Duncan looks uncannily like Julie Delpy 20 years on, and the echoes of the French actress's scathing Céline in Linklater's film bring a fortuitous bonus dimension to Le Week-End .

Things come to a head at a dinner party held by Nick's old Cambridge friend Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), an American academic who's living the Parisian dream. He has a chic apartment, a new glamorous young wife, a prestigious publisher, a gaggle of highbrow friends—and a misguided belief that his English friends must be living a perfect existence. Nick glumly bonds with Morgan's neglected son, a lonesome stoner (Olly Alexander) found listening to Nick Drake (whose songs are synonymous with autumnal Cambridge melancholia). Meg, meanwhile, flirts with a Proust specialist, then lets Nick know she's open to an affair. The climax is a dinner-table tour de force by Nick, who announces to everyone: “I am truly fucked.” As can only happen in such theatrical set-pieces, which magically transcend the embarrassments of reality, he achieves a true moment of desolate grandeur.

Nick and Meg are fucked indeed, as are we all sooner or later, but the wit and acuity of Le Week-End is that it enables us to acknowledge the fact through articulate, if somewhat self-deceiving, characters who express their dilemma with some style. Kureishi's craft lies in not making these characters too lovable, or even tolerable. In real life, they'd bore you rigid; on screen they become, in all their disgruntlement, quite mesmerizing.

Goldblum, meanwhile, plays everyone's idea of Jeff Goldblum, almost a Saturday Night Live impersonation of himself, with added Rive Gauche smugness. But we haven't seen him doing his routine with such zest for years, and his bizarre twitchy inflections pepper the film with a dash of arch cosmopolitan glamour. When the trio round things off with a finale of le Madison , it's a lovely curtain call—an imitation of an imitation, two Brits and an American impersonating three French actors doing a jukebox dance à l'américaine . It's a neat touch of the knowingness which the French call second degré : the film embraces its own artifice, even phoniness, in a sweet, light kiss-off to a scenario that, at heart, couldn't be bleaker or more bitterly real.

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Review: le week-end.

Both keenly calculated and flowing with offbeat, naturalistic detail, Hanif Kureishi’s jewel of a script reflects his sensibilities as a playwright.

Le Week-End

“You can’t not love and hate the same person,” says British sexagenarian Nick Burrows (Jim Broadbent), “usually within the space of five minutes, in my experience.” The sentiment is one Nick imparts to his wife, Meg (Lindsay Duncan), with whom he’s vacationing in Paris for the couple’s 30th wedding anniversary, and it encapsulates the way the lovely and unapologetic Le Week-End operates. Bound to draw countless comparisons to the highly similar Before Midnight , the film, which marks the fourth collaboration between director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi, explores the bittersweet and largely unglamorized happenings of a long-term relationship, bringing to light, amid a jaunt in a foreign country, two lovers’ ingrained and shared understandings, whose specificity achieves a surprising universality. Finally free of a grown hanger-on of a son, the vacationing duo find their golden-year freedom stirring up fears of loss, identity, and inadequacy, and their rapport is a constant toggle between warm codependence and button-pushing spats. Both keenly calculated and flowing with offbeat, naturalistic detail, Kureishi’s jewel of a script reflects his sensibilities as a playwright, and like Before Midnight , Le Week-End often unfolds like filmic theater, with potential contrivances of language being transcended by its honesty and the ace actors tasked to relay it.

And yet, it’s also what isn’t said that reveals the details of Nick and Meg’s union. After booking a suite, at Meg’s request, in a tony hotel they can’t afford (she’s a modestly paid teacher; he’s a professor facing unemployment), Meg tells Nick of all the things she suddenly wants to do, like learn Italian to match her gorgeously fluent French, and he convincingly infers that she’s proposing a divorce. Cut to the next scene and the two are stealthily skipping the check, then running gleefully through the street like a pair of mischievous puppy-lovers. At night, while Meg sleeps, Nick relishes his time alone, making collages and listening to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” whose lyric “How does it feel…” is graciously cut short by the film, clipped before it proceeds with the dead-on inquiry “…to be on your own?” Then Meg wakes in panic, and after an evening of coyishly denying Nick’s sexual advances (“Just a sniff,” Nick beckons at Meg’s vagina in the film’s boldest age-defying moment), she breathes relief when she finds him, ignoring his response to her fears of his departure (“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Nick says).

All of this choreographed yet unaffectledly resonant emotional ping-ponging, which Broadbent and Duncan brilliantly, respectively play with boyish devotion and rich austerity, leads to a climactic dinner party at the home of Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), a successful author and former Cambridge classmate of Nick’s, whom the Burrowses happen upon in what must be one of Goldblum’s greatest on-screen scenes. Roaming a marketplace while alternately shooting barbs and sharing compliments (“You make my blood boil like no one else,” Meg says; “That’s the sign of a deep connection!” Nick retorts), the couple encounters Morgan, who immediately waxes ecstatic like the planet’s most charismatic prick, lauding his long, lost peer and kissing Meg’s hand while extending, along with the party invitation, a seemingly boundless comic-snob demeanor (Goldblum wields Morgan’s overwrought words as sexily and effortlessly as he wears his designer clothes). Just before the party, Meg is at Nick’s throat over the accusation of a past affair, but as they enter, she begs him not to leave her side. He does, and the film uses the opportunity to give both partners glimpses of being unwed. Meg is hit on by a younger French intellectual, while Nick has a powwow with Morgan, who proves a horrifying reflection of what Nick’s life might be like without his wife, right down to unchecked open-mouth chewing, an act for which Meg often chides him.

The cautionary motives for these exchanges aren’t exactly subtle, and like Before Midnight , Le Week-End ’s least effective scene involves a well-populated dinner table, where Nick’s gut-spilling speech about life, love, and work feels like forced catharsis—a place to which the movie was pushed instead of where it organically arrived. But such is the rare low in a dramedy that’s brimming with highs, and that thankfully breaks the streak of bad-to-worse films about and starring senior citizens. Following the woeful Morning Glory and Hyde Park on Hudson , Le Week-End is also a considerable rebound for Michell, who, working with French cinematographer Nathalie Durand, offers compositions that complement Nick and Meg’s perpetually two-sided bond. As the couple approaches a Parisian museum, snapping at each other while intermittently giggling, they’re dwarfed while the whole building is captured in wide shot, and promising sunlight beams in a corner as dead autumn leaves scurry across the ground. And at the party and also afterward, Michell lines the bottom of his frame with out-of-focus candle flames, which seem to symbolically evolve with Nick and Meg’s fluctuating love, capable of being snuffed at any moment while also refusing to burn out.

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Le Week-End Review

Late-life love story gets it right..

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Le Week-End Review

Le Week-End

11 Oct 2013

Le Week-End

Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are a couple of one-time radicals on a 30th-anniversary second honeymoon in Paris, where the lifelong tensions between his avuncular denialism and her prickly impetuousness snap dramatically, and humorously. Intentionally or not, the film smacks of an attempt to capture a youthful, indie style the oldieweds themselves crave to rediscover, giving it a clumsy, puppyish feel — like an Exotic Mumblecore Hotel. But despite that it is never unappealing, thanks to a Jeff Goldblum cameo and some compelling verbal swordplay between Broadbent and Duncan.

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Film Review: Le Week-End

Jesse and celine in retirement: fine acting can’t save voyeuristic, derivative film.

Your enjoyment of Le Week-End , the new collaboration from director Roger Michell ( Hyde Park on Hudson , Notting Hill ) and writer Hanif Kureishi ( Venus, My Beautiful Launderette ) will depend on your predilection for eavesdropping on intimate conversations between longtime couples. If being privy to such personal discussions intrigues and delights you, then you may be the audience for this picture. If the dissection of the intricacies of a 30-year-marriage doesn’t sound appealing to you, however, then you may want to pass on this one.

Le Week-End , as its name implies, takes place over the course of one weekend; in this case, the weekend in question is a 30 th anniversary getaway to Paris for British philosophy professor Nick (Jim Broadbent) and his schoolteacher wife Meg (Lindsay Duncan). The two attempt to recreate their Parisian honeymoon from 30 years prior, with mixed results.

The picture deserves accolades for presenting the romantic travails of an older, long-married couple, a subject not frequently seen on screen (last year’s far superior Amour notwithstanding), but, unfortunately, Michell and Kureishi offer no new unique perspective on the subject. Their film plays out like Before Midnight for the senior set (in fact, Lindsay Duncan eerily resembles the way Julie Delpy’s Celine might look as she enters her 70s), with a healthy dose of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf tossed in for good measure.

Nick and Meg are alternatively hostile and tender with each other, moving from bickering to laughing and from sniping to kissing often within mere minutes. Nick is the more needy of the two, insecure and constantly looking for reassurance –both physical and emotional – from Meg, and seldom receiving it, while Meg is more cold and distant, easily irritated by her husband, and freely pointing out his annoying habits (she grumbles about the way he eats his food loudly, for example). We see the more mundane aspects of how they relate to each other – Meg reminds Nick that he’s got the Euros, reminds him to keep track of the keys, and acts annoyed when he tried to be affectionate with her. Yet we also see their playful side – Nick makes Meg laugh easily, and they pull a dash-and dine-stunt at a fancy Paris restaurant worthy of carefree young college students.

With their professional careers nearing their end and their son grown, Nick and Meg seem at loose ends. They are daunted by the prospect being alone together for many more years to come, yet are equally terrified of being without one another. When they aren’t squabbling or laughing, much of their time is spent in serious, wrenching discussion about what each wants, both from each other and from life itself.

Things come to a head when Nick and Meg attend a dinner party hosted by Morgan (Jeff Goldblum, bringing some levity to the proceedings), a successful writer and former colleague of Nick’s. There Meg is hit on by one of Morgan’s suave French colleagues: “What a great thing to be so attuned to your own unhappiness,” the guy says to Meg, in what apparently is supposed to be a sexy French intellectual’s charming method of flirting. That scene is contrasted with Nick musing about life with Morgan’s teenage son Michael (Olly Alexander) upstairs in Michael’s bedroom while the party unfolds beneath them. The evening serves as a catalyst for Nick and Meg to resolve their marital rupture, though by the time the requisite inappropriate dinner speeches happen, you may be as bored with the outcome as Nick and Meg have been with each other throughout much of the film.

The picture at least is made somewhat interesting by its fine performances. Broadbent and Duncan are consummate actors, and each does a masterful job of authentically conveying the confused mixture of petty annoyances, harbored resentments, and lingering love typical of long relationships. And Jeff Goldblum is at his smarmy, boorish best, channeling an older, more successful version of the obsequious Peopl e magazine writer he portrayed so adeptly in Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 classic The Big Chill .

But such terrific acting is not enough of a reason to recommend this film. At one point in the film Nick says, “love is the only interesting thing.”  He may very well be right, since this picture certainly doesn’t challenge that notion to any great degree.

Le Week-End opens in Bay Area theaters today.

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Carrie Kahn

Moving from the arthouse to the multiplex with grace, ease, and only the occasional eye roll. Proud member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.

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Author: Carrie Kahn

Moving from the arthouse to the multiplex with grace, ease, and only the occasional eye roll. Proud member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. View all posts by Carrie Kahn

movie review le weekend

Le Week-End (2013)

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Culture | Film

Le Week-End - film review

movie review le weekend

Some films are so written. Le Week-End is about a nearly elderly couple from Birmingham going for a mini-break in Paris they can barely afford in even budget form on their 30th wedding anniversary, in an attempt to recapture the happiness of their honeymoon there, even rejuvenate themselves a little.

He’s Jim Broadbent, a bit of a portly gargoyle then, but with that impishness too; she’s Lindsay Duncan, white-haired,  elegantly etiolated, bleakly disheartened. The hotel room they’ve booked is so cramped and dismaying, they know it’s never going to work, so in desperation, they go on a spree, checking in to a grand hotel they can’t possibly afford, charging lavish treats to the room and going to a luxury restaurant and doing a geriatric runner before paying the bill.

Might this work? Not really, because this suffering couple are living in a script by Hanif Kureishi – in fact, a classic Kureishi short story ending with a short story’s irresolution – one directed  by his regular collaborator Roger Michell and produced by Kevin Loader. This therefore is a study in frustration: male career failure and sexual desperation made all the more poignant by age, and female boredom, dissatisfaction and fury operating on a rather broader front, the clock ticking by on this little package too.

Asked what she wants, the wife, Meg, says she wants to learn Italian, play the piano and dance the tango. She doesn’t want another man, she says – “it’s me I want more of”.

Whereas the husband, Nick, is hopelessly uxorious but unwanted. In the grand hotel room, he asks pathetically: “Can I touch you?”  “What for?” she asks, as if genuinely curious. “This last five or 10 years, your vagina has become something of a closed book”, he laments. The old one-two! Later, on his knees while she grants him a rare glimpse, he begs: “Let me smell you… please… just a sniff.”

When it comes to male abjection, smartly followed by active humiliation, Hanif Kureshi is a class leader: Le Week-End is full of zingers in this possibly still under-appreciated art-form. Nick at one point actually says: “I’m amazed how mediocre I’ve turned out to be.” Then the film climaxes in a horrific Parisian dinner party hosted by an old university friend of Nick’s (Jeff Goldblum), now a rich and successful author with a new, young and besotted wife who, not having seen Nick for years, still believes in him and his gifts. If not strong on positive role models, Le Week-End is skilfully turned and often funny.

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Le Week-End

Time out says.

After ‘The Mother’ and ‘Venus’, this is the third collaboration between ‘Notting Hill’ director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi. It’s their strongest yet, and once again they offer a late-life dash for love and happiness. ‘Le Week-End’ tells of Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg (Lindsay Duncan), a married couple who head to Paris for a break, but find themselves facing up to personal and professional ennui. It’s lightly played, often very funny and shot all over Paris with energy and wit, and boosted by superb, inquiring turns from Broadbent and Duncan. It deals head-on with its sad-faced subject without leaning on sentimentality or misery, or offering easy answers. Michell and Kureishi insert a winning dose of magic into the realism in the form of Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), a wealthy old friend that the couple bump into. The meeting inspires an awkward, near-surreal dinner-party scene and allows Michell to close the film with an uplifting nod to Godard’s ‘Bande à Part’. Delightful.

Release Details

  • Release date: Friday 11 October 2013
  • Duration: 93 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director: Roger Michell
  • Screenwriter: Hanif Kureishi
  • Jeff Goldblum
  • Jim Broadbent
  • Lindsay Duncan

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movie review le weekend

LE WEEK-END

"a complicated marriage saved by enduring love".

movie review le weekend

NoneLightModerateHeavy
Language
Violence
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Nudity

movie review le weekend

What You Need To Know:

(Pa, Ro, B, C, LL, S, A, DD, MM) Mixed pagan worldview with some Romantic, moral, and Christian, redemptive elements about a marriage in trouble that’s eventually redeemed, mostly by enduring love, including a visit to a church; 20 obscenities, four profanities, and some other crude language; no violence; brief sexual innuendo; no nudity; alcohol use; smoking marijuana at one point; and, stealing and couple sneaks out on their restaurant bill.

More Detail:

LE WEEK-END is a comedy-drama about a middle-aged married couple trying to rekindle their relationship by going to Paris to relive their honeymoon. Despite some boring parts, it’s an insightful, entertaining movie with a nice ending, but there are some elements that require extreme caution.

Director Roger Michell’s (MORNING GLORY and HYDE PARK ON HUDSON) LE WEEK-END follows late middle-aged couple, Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg Burrows (Lindsay Duncan) as they set out to revisit the Paris of their honeymoon and hopefully revive their marriage. It’s their 30th wedding anniversary, the children are grown and gone. Aboard the Eurostar train to Paris, university professor Nick, forgetful, bumbling in tweed, irritates his wife by simply breathing. “I could lose you in a minute!” Meg announces passive-aggressively. Their relationship is teetering on the edge of collapse. Yet, mutually irritated though this couple may be, moments of deep mutual love punctuate their marriage. It’s complicated.

In Paris, Nick has booked them at the same hotel as their honeymoon. However, on arrival, what was perfect 30 years ago is now a model of mediocrity – a beige prison. Meg snaps, grabbing her luggage and leaving. She drags Nick to a fancy hotel they can’t really afford, announcing to the concierge, “Whatever it costs!”

Meg and Nick take in the City of Lights. Moments of further exasperation are interrupted by tender moments and moments of mutual laughter.

Nick takes a soda can top and offers it as a ring to Meg, proposing, “Try me again!” They kiss passionate just as an old friend, Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), bumps into them. Morgan, Nick’s former protégé, is an eccentric American, published and successful. He invites them to a party at his home to meet his new twenty-something wife. At the party, a secret about Nick’s job at a second-rate school for “idiots” comes to the fore, and Meg discovers how deeply Nick loves her. Will it be enough to give them a new start?

LE WEEK-END is a story of deep love and commitment, as well as a marriage in desperate need of healing and exorcising its past. A second honeymoon in Paris provides all the fodder for renewed romance while simultaneously releasing 30 years of pent-up frustration and unprocessed emotion. At times very raw, it’s a romantic story of a couple fighting to save a marriage. The ending seems to show that enduring love not only keeps a marriage going but also saves it from being destroyed.

LE WEEK-END is well directed and smartly written, though the unconventional story structure grows slow and a bit boring toward the end. However, the strong performances manage to keep things going and bring the movie to a satisfying conclusion. Extreme caution is advised for some foul language and a scene with marijuana.

Nature-Loving Robots, Unexpected Romances, Coppola's Big Swing, and Everything Else You Need To Watch This Weekend

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Fall is officially here, so TV season is in full swing. The Walking Dead returns to your screens as Norman Reedus reprises his iconic role of Daryl Dixon. Kristen Bell and Adam Brody star in a wonderful millennial romance on Netflix, and Junji Ito 's groundbreaking horror manga is finally getting an anime adaptation.

While TV and streaming is serving us well, that doesn't mean there are some great new films hitting the cinemas across the globe. Aubrey Plaza ( Agatha All Along ) and Maisy Stella ( Nashville ) star in the terrific coming-of-age film, My Old Ass , while Lupita Nyong'o stars in one of the best-animated films of the year, The Wild Robot . For more information on these titles, check out everything you must watch this weekend.

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Shawn Van Horn praised the new season, saying: The two besties get back to their ass-kicking ways, trying to defeat Marion, save Laurent, and get back to America all at the same time. How they get there is filled with those usual The Walking Dead frustrations, but it's with our two favorite characters, so we can overlook that. Besides, the finale boasts a twist that sets up another season of Daryl and Carol together .

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The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot is an animated drama film based on a series of books by Peter Brown. The adaptation is written and directed by Chris Sanders and stars Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, and Catherine O'Hara. The Wild Robot centers on a robot named Rozzum 7134, who becomes stranded on a deserted island and the guardian of a young orphan.

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Soham Bagchi describes the series as the story of the quiet coastal town of Kurôzu-cho, where something sinister lurks beneath the surface, slowly enveloping the lives of its inhabitants in a spiral of horror. The series follows a high school student, Kirie Goshima, and her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, as they collectively witness their town drown in their obsession with spirals, which have incredible psychological and physical powers that take over whoever comes under their curse and kill them in increasingly horrific ways.

Shuichi's parents are the first to fall prey to the spiral's curse, which pushes him to be reclusive but also makes him develop the ability to detect when the spirals form. Meanwhile, Kirie herself gets affected by the curse of spirals as her hair starts forming curls. As they learn more about their town's history and bear witness to the grotesque horrors that come their way, dark secrets are revealed, which make them question their sanity and attempt to escape this hellish nightmare.

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Nobody Wants This is a delightful series thanks to its sharp writing and incredible cast. Isabella Soares explains in her review : Bell and Brody are simply irresistible as the show's leading pair, making their onscreen partnership feel like a match made in millennial heaven. After all, Bell is also an early aughts star, with her breakthrough on TV thanks to playing the inquisitive teen detective at the center of Veronica Mars .

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‘When Fall is Coming’ Review: François Ozon’s Deceptively Calm, Collected Film About an Unraveling Rural Retirement

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Marie-Claude doesn’t share her friend’s faith in her son, but then sometimes it’s easier to parent children who aren’t your own. Michelle’s relationship with her own daughter is wholly dysfunctional: Flinty, phone-addicted and in the bitter throes of divorce, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) visits from Paris positively steaming with resentment toward her desperately hospitable mother. Michelle puts up with this hostility to enjoy the company of her adoring pre-teen grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos) — though when a dinner of foraged wild mushrooms lands Valérie in hospital with food poisoning, mother-daughter relations take an extra-toxic turn.

It’s an accident that could have happened to anyone, Michelle is assured by doctors, police and Marie-Claude alike, though she’s not so sure: At some level, she wonders, did she wish her daughter harm? It’s the first of several artful pivots — in story, in atmosphere, in our understanding of precisely who these characters are — in a script, by Ozon and Philippe Piazzo, that consistently seeks to surprise viewers without the contrived machinations of outright twists. (It doesn’t, however, entirely pull off some stray flirtations with the supernatural.)

While sudden incidents wrest the plot in new directions, the film is driven less by perverse narrative trickery than by the arbitrary cruelty of fate or the volatility of human nature. Likewise, when disorienting secrets emerge from Michelle’s past, their concealment to that point is as character-revealing as the truths they unveil. Not everything or everyone is a mystery to be dramatically unlocked in “When Fall is Coming”; everyday life is its own puzzle.

A French stage veteran and stalwart screen character actor who won a César for “Life is a Long Quiet River” 35 years ago, Vincent has rarely had a film built quite so devotedly around her presence, and in particular her storied face — closely but tenderly examined throughout by DP Jérome Alméras, in a tawny palette equally alive to flushed skin and turning leaves. The drama here frequently rests on Michelle’s unspoken realizations and shifts in emotional expression, as she wrestles conflicting impulses of shame and defiance, guilt and pique, curiosity and complacency.

There’s sterling support from Balasko, genial but occasionally caustic as a woman less inclined than her friend to skirt hard truths, and particularly Lottin, hitherto best known as a comic player, who brings both goofy affability and a hint of interior chill to a character whose lunkish exterior covers gnawing moral contradictions. Nobody is exactly who they appear to be in “When Fall is Coming,” but Ozon’s nimble, perceptive little film takes that as a given: When winter and mortality are beckoning, the past only counts for so much.

Reviewed at San Sebastian Film Festival (Competition), Sept. 21, 2024. Running time: 103 MIN. (Original title: "Quand vient l'automne")

  • Production: (France) A Foz production. (World sales: Playtime, Paris.) Producer: François Ozon.
  • Crew: Director: François Ozon. Screenplay: Ozon, Philippe Piazzo. Camera: Jérome Alméras. Editor: Anita Roth. Music: Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine.
  • With: Hélène Vincent, Pierre Lottin, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Garlan Erlos, Sophie Guillemin, Malik Zidi, Paul Beaurepaire. (French dialogue)

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Hard to kill: Regina filmmaker celebrates major theatrical release of long-awaited zombie movie

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It’s fitting that Lowell Dean’s contribution to the zombie apocalypse genre is a movie that just won’t die.

Hard to kill: Regina filmmaker celebrates major theatrical release of long-awaited zombie movie Back to video

The Regina filmmaker is full of pride in anticipation of his longtime passion project, Die Alone, coming to life tonight in movie theatres across Canada. The 90-minute thriller, starring Carrie-Anne Moss from The Matrix, was filmed in the Regina area last summer after roughly a decade of burning a hole in Dean’s shelf.

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“This film has been the longest journey of any project I’ve ever had,” said Dean, who wrote the script prior to releasing his 2014 cult favourite, WolfCop , which was also shot in Regina.

“I just had a really hard time getting it made. I kept revisiting it every year and revising the script and trying new things … but it was starting to feel a bit like my Moby Dick. Am I just going to be chasing this film forever?”

After years of frustration, Dean thought he’d put the final nail in Die Alone’s coffin when he told producer Danielle Masters it might be “fate” that the movie never sees the light of day.

Then along came a financing opportunity through Telefilm Canada, which helped breathe new life into the project.

“By the time it actually happened, I kid you not, I was convinced it wasn’t going to happen,” said Dean, who also directed the film. “I now have a weird fondness for this project. Obviously the story and the film itself is one thing, but to me it’s a reminder about tenacity and to not give up. If you would have asked me at a couple of periods in the last five years, ‘Are you going to make Die Alone?’, it was like ‘Never. It’s over.’

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“And here we are.”

Die Alone opens this weekend in almost 40 Canadian theatres before commencing a U.S. run on Oct. 18, followed by a future release on Crave.

The movie’s price tag was about $7 million (CDN), said Dean, who called it “by far my biggest-budget film to date.”

It was shot in multiple locations near Regina, among them the Saskatchewan Polytechnic campus and the picturesque Qu’Appelle Valley. Key locations included the towns of Qu’Appelle and Fort Qu’Appelle in addition to a farmhouse near Katepwa where over half the movie was filmed.

“I’ve said it before, but this is a love letter to Saskatchewan,” Dean explained. “We wanted to get the vastness and beauty of Saskatchewan, and not just like the cliché of ‘it’s a flat place.’ We wanted to show hills and valleys and obviously those gorgeous sunsets.”

Dean’s original vision for Die Alone always involved filming in his home province, but that plan changed when Saskatchewan eliminated the film tax credit.

In fact, Dean was on the verge of finalizing locations in B.C. when the Sask. government renewed its investment in the industry through a new grant program.

”That was the big factor that brought us back to the province …,” he said. “This movie wouldn’t have been possible in Saskatchewan two years earlier with the previous system. Creative Saskatchewan, the work they’ve done has been amazing to not only support local filmmakers like myself but I think it’s going to bring in a lot of outside work too and really grow the Saskatchewan film industry. I’m quite excited.”

Although Dean would have gladly made the movie almost anywhere, there’s no place like home.

“It means the world to me,” he continued. “I want to be around my family and sleep in my own bed and make movies and pursue my passion. Now that Saskatchewan is so passionately behind film, I think the conversation is so positive and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people.

“My big hope is that people go out to the theatres this weekend and say, ‘Wow! That was shot in our own province’ and it gives them a sense of pride. That will be my biggest win, if people go to the theatre, see this film, support it and start thinking about Saskatchewan films in a whole new light.”

The film’s local ties feature Dean and his crew in conjunction with Kevin Dewalt’s Regina-based production company, Minds Eye Entertainment, and a cast that includes Regina’s Amy Matysio (WolfCop).

The lead roles are played by well-known actors like Moss, Douglas Smith (Don’t Worry Darling), Kimberly-Sue Murray (V Wars), and Frank Grillo (Captain America).

In the film, Smith’s character has amnesia and wakes up to discover that a virus has turned the world upside down, transforming people into zombielike creatures. He joins forces with a rugged survivalist (Moss) to locate his missing girlfriend (Murray), which sends him down an uncharted path.

“This film is not what you think,” Dean added. “If you want a creature film and a post-apocalyptic film, you’re going to get it. But the big secret is you’re also going to get, I hope, a really unique love story that stays with you long after you left the theatre.”

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“Week-end à Taipei”, écrit par Luc Besson, un film d’action pied au plancher mais sans trop d’idées

Twists douteux, lieux communs… ce blockbuster explosif de george huang vaut surtout pour son acteur survolté, luke evans, et ses scènes de bagarres ou de courses-poursuites parfaitement chorégraphiées..

« Week-end à Taipei » de George Huang, avec Wyatt Yang et Luke Evans.

« Week-end à Taipei » de George Huang, avec Wyatt Yang et Luke Evans. EuropaCorp

Par Yohan Haddad

Réservé aux abonnés

Publié le 27 septembre 2024 à 14h00

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B ienvenue à Taipei, capitale ultra branchée de Taïwan, dans laquelle tout le monde parle anglais, magie du cinéma oblige, et où les riches détiennent une part importante du capital national. Parmi eux, Kwang, un magnat spécialisé dans l’exploitation de matières premières (on ne saura jamais lesquelles) s’apprête à être jugé pour certaines de ses pratiques, qui tuent chaque année des centaines de milliers de dauphins. Pour l’arrêter, John Lawson, agent américain qui lutte contre le trafic de drogue, va devoir trahir ses supérieurs et venir sur place pour sauver la planète, mais aussi la femme de Kwang qui, fruit du hasard, fait partie de son passé…

On l’aura compris, ce blockbuster explosif ne fait pas dans la dentelle. George Huang, accompagné au scénario par notre Luc Besson national, joue volontiers avec les pires clichés du cinéma d’action : le flic frondeur, la femme fatale, le bad guy asiatique, la patronne autoritaire, l’enfant plus malin que tout le monde et le flic stoïque se croisent, collaborent, puis complotent tous les uns contre les autres, dans un jeu du chat et de la souris redondant, à la manière des derniers films de Luc Besson réalisateur ( Lucy , Anna ), qui multipliaient eux aussi les coups fourrés et les twists douteux pour faire tenir l’intrigue sur la durée.

À lire aussi :

Les sorties cinéma de la semaine : “Megalopolis”, “Emmanuelle”, “Vivre, mourir, renaître”…

Les scènes d’action, impeccablement chorégraphiées, viennent heureusement sauver la mise de ce Week-end à Taipei. Elles sont portées par un Luke Evans en état de grâce, sorte de Jason Statham des années 2020 (la chevelure en plus), introduit lors d’une séquence jouissive dans les cuisines d’un grand restaurant. Et qui parvient, dans une dernière partie aberrante, à s’imposer comme un sauveur tout-puissant, à la rescousse d’un pays en crise. Comme quoi les relents du patriotisme américain peuvent aussi apparaître dans une production franco-taïwanaise…

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“Week-end à Taipei”, écrit par Luc Besson, un film d’action pied au plancher mais sans trop d’idées

Week-end à Taipei

Film d'action

Réalisateur

George Huang

Matteo Locasciulli

France - Taïwan

Jadis en couple, un agent de la DEA et une pilote hors pair se retrouvent contraints de se serrer les coudes lors de leurs périlleuses retrouvailles.

John Lawlor

Gwei Lun-Mei

le chef du cartel

Yi-Ching Lu

Pernell Walker

Charlotte Fields

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Josh Greenbaum

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Hirokazu Kore-eda

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Emmanuelle

Audrey Diwan

Viêt and Nam

Viêt and Nam

Truong Minh Quy

Megalopolis

Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola

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Vivre, mourir, renaître

Riverboom

Claude Baechtold

Welcome

Philippe Lioret

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Week-end à Taipei : que vaut le nouveau film d’action produit par Luc Besson ?

Par Pascal Le Duff

Luke Evans est convaincant en policier agile.

Note : 2/5

Kwang, parrain de la drogue, entre dans une colère noire quand il découvre que le fils de son épouse l’a dénoncé à la justice. Contraint à des congés forcés après une opération d’infiltration qui a mal tourné, John Lawlor, agent fédéral américain, se rend en douce à Taipei (Taïwan) pour récupérer la preuve qui mettra hors d’état de nuire celui qui est son ennemi juré depuis quinze ans. Il comprend alors qu’il est marié à son ex ! Écrit et produit par Luc Besson, ce film d’action banal dans ses twists et raccourcis pratiques a le mérite de détendre grâce à des cascades spectaculaires et aux acteurs qui ajoutent de la complexité à des personnages sous écrits. Respectivement méchant et héros dans « Fast and Furious 6 », Luke Evans et Sung Kang inversent leur rapport à la loi. Le premier est convaincant en policier agile et le second glaçant en parrain moins meurtri à l’idée de perdre son empire que de ne pas être aimé par sa femme et son fils adoptif !

Gwei Lun Mei est charmante en folle du volant faussement insouciante. Le registre sentimental laisse de marbre mais cette série B divertissante capte la variété des décors taïwanais, qu’ils soient poisseux, bucoliques ou luxueux.

Film d’action de George Huang, avec Luke Evans et Sung Kang.

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"Week-end à Taipei" : film d'action bas de plafond co-scénarisé par Luc Besson

Sur un scénario cosigné par luc besson, les retrouvailles agitées entre un agent de la dea américain et l'épouse d'un baron de la drogue taïwanais… un film d'action avec luke evans à voir (ou pas) sur grand écran dès ce mercredi..

Hubert Heyrendt

  • Publié le 25-09-2024 à 10h17

"Weekend à Taipei" de George Huang, avec Luke Evans, Gwei Lun Mei et Sung Kang.

Mariée à un puissant baron de la drogue de Taipei (Sung Kang), Joey Kwang (Gwei Lun Mei) vit dans le luxe. Passionnée de voitures, elle peut s'offrir toutes les Ferrari qu'elle veut. Mais elle n'est pas heureuse. Alors que son jeune fils met son nez dans les affaires de son beau-père, c'est l'occasion pour la jeune femme de renouer avec son ancien amour, John Lawlor (Luke Evans), à qui elle demande de l'aide. Venu passer quelques jours de vacances à Taïwan, l'agent américain de la DEA tente de fuir avec Joey et celui qu'il découvre être son fils. Ce qui n'est pas du goût du malfrat, qui lance ses hommes à leurs trousses…

Weekend in Taipei (Week-end à Taipei): Trailer HD VO st FR/NL

Pure exploitation.

Pan ! Pan ! Boom ! Boom ! Luc Besson ne s'est pas foulé pour pondre le scénario de Week-end à Taipei , dont l'idée lui est venue lors d'une partie du tournage de Lucy dans la capitale taïwanaise. Insérant dans son histoire de gangsters un récit de retrouvailles familiales, ce film d'action français laisse totalement indifférent.

Si le scénario de ce pur film d'exploitation y est pour beaucoup, la mise en scène pataude de l'Américain George Huang (connu uniquement pour avoir réalisé Swimming With Sharks , documentaire qui plongeait dans les coulisses d'Hollywood… en 1994) n'aide pas. Pas plus que le jeu univoque de Luke Evans.

Habitué des grosses productions hollywoodiennes plus ou moins musclées (du Choc des Titans de Louis Leterrier au Robin des Bois de Ridley Scott, en passant par les volets 7 et 8 de la saga Fast&Furious ), mais que l'on a aussi vu à l'affiche de Message from the King du Belge Fabrice Du Welz, l'acteur gallois cachetonne allègrement. Tout comme la Taïwanaise Gwei Lun Mei (sublime dans le magnifique Lac aux oies sauvages de Diao Yi'nan en 2019) et l'Américano-Coréen Sung Kang, second couteau repéré également dans Fast&Furious …

"Weekend à Taipei" de George Huang, avec Luke Evans, Gwei Lun Mei et Sung Kang.

Week-end à Taipei/Weekend in Taipei Film d'action De George Huang Scénario George Huang et Luc Besson Photographie Colin Wandersman Musique Matteo Locasciulli Avec Luke Evans, Gwei Lun Mei, Sung Kang… Durée 1h48

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IMAGES

  1. Le Week-End movie review & film summary (2014)

    movie review le weekend

  2. Le Weekend

    movie review le weekend

  3. Movie Review: 'Le Week-End'

    movie review le weekend

  4. Le Week-End

    movie review le weekend

  5. Le Weekend (2015)

    movie review le weekend

  6. Le Weekend (2013)

    movie review le weekend

VIDEO

  1. Le Weekend (Trailer in HD)

  2. LEY CHAKKA (লে ছক্কা) MOVIE REVIEW

  3. le weekend dernier

  4. Movie Review: Le Ruffian

  5. The Wages of Fear movie Review

COMMENTS

  1. Le Week-End movie review & film summary (2014)

    Le Week-End. Let us use the arrival of "Le Week-End"—a wistfully rendered yet often barbed account of longtime marrieds who find themselves dissatisfied and drifting apart while on an anniversary trip to Paris—to salute a filmmaker who rarely gets the credit he deserves: Roger Michell. At 57, Michell is the youngest and most unsung of a ...

  2. The Weekend

    Rated: 4/5 Jan 6, 2015 Full Review Alissa Wilkinson Christianity Today All of this elevates Le Week-End to the level of intelligent film without sacrificing humor, bite, and beauty, all of which ...

  3. Paris Can't Heal the Old Hurts in 'Le Week-End'

    NYT Critic's Pick. Directed by Roger Michell. Comedy, Drama, Romance. R. 1h 33m. By A.O. Scott. March 13, 2014. "You can't not love and hate the same person," Nick says to Meg, the woman ...

  4. Le Week-End

    Le Week-End is a 2013 British-French drama film directed by Roger Michell and starring Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, and Jeff Goldblum.Written by Hanif Kureishi, the film is the fourth collaboration between Michell and Kureishi, who both began developing the story seven years prior during a weekend trip to Montmartre. [3] It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto ...

  5. Le Week-End Reviews

    Los Angeles Times. Mar 13, 2014. Le Week-End is a sour and misanthropic film masquerading as an honest and sensitive romance. A painful and unremittingly bleak look at a difficult marriage, it wants us to sit through a range of domestic horrors without offering much of anything as a reward. Read More.

  6. Edelstein on Le Week-End: Unbelievably Marvelous, in Light of Its

    movie review Mar. 13, 2014. Edelstein on Le Week ... Le Week-End is a marital ­disintegration-reintegration drama that opens with a dose of frost and vinegar and turns believably sweet—and ...

  7. The Weekend

    The film hits the mark on couples struggling to find that balance between individuality and union with Broadbent and Duncan providing pitch-perfect performances. Full Review | Original Score: B ...

  8. 'Le Week-End' movie review

    Oof. "Le Week-End" continues in this vein, the exchanges alternating between tender and venomous, until a human wild card arrives on the scene in the form of Jeff Goldblum, who introduces notes of ...

  9. Le Week-End

    Le Week-End - film review on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save. By Nigel Andrews. October 10 2013. Jump to comments section Print this page. Stay informed with free updates.

  10. Le Week-End review

    One of the joys of autumn is the seasonal return to films about - and intended for - grown-ups, and movies don't come much more crisply and buoyantly adult than Le Week-End, at once the latest and best from the director/writer team of Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi. The abundant wisdom of the pair's third screen collaboration within 10 years surely reflects the growing awareness that comes ...

  11. Film of the Week: Le Week-End

    Things come to a head at a dinner party held by Nick's old Cambridge friend Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), an American academic who's living the Parisian dream. He has a chic apartment, a new glamorous young wife, a prestigious publisher, a gaggle of highbrow friends—and a misguided belief that his English friends must be living a perfect existence.

  12. Le Week-End (2013)

    Le Week-End: Directed by Roger Michell. With Lindsay Duncan, Jim Broadbent, Igor Gotesman, Olivier Audibert. A British couple return to Paris many years after their honeymoon there in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage.

  13. 'Le Week-End' Review: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan in Paris

    Film Review: 'Le Week-End' Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 6, 2013. Running time: 93 MIN. Production: (U.K.) A Music Box Films (in U.S.) release of a Film4 ...

  14. Review: Le Week-End

    The cautionary motives for these exchanges aren't exactly subtle, and like Before Midnight, Le Week-End's least effective scene involves a well-populated dinner table, where Nick's gut-spilling speech about life, love, and work feels like forced catharsis—a place to which the movie was pushed instead of where it organically arrived. But such is the rare low in a dramedy that's ...

  15. Le Week-End Review

    Comparisons can be drawn between Le Week-End and the Julie Delpy/Ethan Hawke Before trilogy with good cause. It is not inconceivable that Meg and Nick are late-in-life manifestations of Celine and ...

  16. Le Week-End Review

    Le Week-End Review Nick (Broadbent) and Meg (Duncan) are a Birmingham couple nearing their wedding anniversary. To celebrate, they decide to return to Paris, scene of their glorious honeymoon 30 ...

  17. Film Review: Le Week-End

    Le Week-End, as its name implies, takes place over the course of one weekend; in this case, the weekend in question is a 30 th anniversary getaway to Paris for British philosophy professor Nick (Jim Broadbent) and his schoolteacher wife Meg (Lindsay Duncan). The two attempt to recreate their Parisian honeymoon from 30 years prior, with mixed ...

  18. Le Week-End (2013)

    A weekend that doesn't work. Red-125 21 April 2014. Le Week-End (2013) is an English film directed by Roger Michell. Lindsay Duncan plays Meg, married to Nick (Jim Broadbent). They've been married for quite a while--probably 35 years or so.

  19. REVIEW: "Le Week-End"

    "Le Week-End" was one of my more eagerly anticipated films of the 2014 Spring movie season. My absolute adoration for the city of Paris combined with the intriguing story of a conflicted older couple was enough to get me onboard. This British drama marks the fourth collaboration between director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi.…

  20. Movie Review: 'Le Week-End'

    The Times critic A. O. Scott reviews "Le Week-End." new video loaded: Movie Review: 'Le Week-End'

  21. Le Week-End

    January 2, 2014. Review at a glance. Some films are so written. Le Week-End is about a nearly elderly couple from Birmingham going for a mini-break in Paris they can barely afford in even budget ...

  22. Le Week-End 2013, directed by Roger Michell

    Review. Le Week-End. 4 out of 5 stars. Tuesday 8 October 2013. Share. ... near-surreal dinner-party scene and allows Michell to close the film with an uplifting nod to Godard's 'Bande à Part ...

  23. LE WEEK-END

    LE WEEK-END is well directed and smartly written, though the unconventional story structure grows a bit slow toward the end. However, the performances manage to keep things going and bring the movie to a satisfying conclusion. Extreme caution is advised for LE-WEEK-END, due to foul language and a marijuana scene.

  24. What To Watch This Weekend: 'The Wild Robot' 'Daryl Dixon ...

    An 18th-birthday mushroom trip brings Elliott (Maisy Stella) face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). When the older Elliott starts handing out warnings about what her ...

  25. 'When Fall is Coming' Review: Ozon's Subtle, Surprising Old ...

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