Director: Leslie Thomas
Writer: Leslie Thomas (Screenplay)
Starring: Adam Bartley, Natalie Ceballos, Dioni Michelle Collins, Sabina Gadecki, Lorraine Pascale, Pete Ploszek, Allan Wasserman, Susan Walters, Evan Watkins
Plot: An ensemble relationship comedy about a young couple whose marriage is in crisis. Their therapist prescribes a weekend of total honesty – the same weekend they’re going to the country with close friends for a blowout good time.
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Honesty Weekend starts as we see how Ada (Ceballos) and John (Watkins) are having issues with their marriage with their therapist Dr Sam Digman (Wasserman) suggest they spend a weekend being honest with each other over a weekend, one they are spending with their friends.
As the weekend unfolds the pair start to learn more things about each other, while their friends look to address their own problems, with Harry (Bartley) and Stella (Collins) looking at their own marriage and Nate (Ploszek) looking to start taking things more seriously, with John’s lesbian best friend Delaney (Gadecki) only making things more complicated.
Thoughts on Honesty Weekend
Characters & Performances – John and Ada are the pair who have a child and are starting to feel like they are having marriage problems, they are trying to use the weekend to become more honest with each other to try and fix their marriage, even though they do seem to be the main characters, they do seem to fall into the background of their own story. Harry and Stella are another couple who haven’t had children yet, with Stella wanting, and Harry not sure about yet, they do seem to have a much more normal issue to talk through, with this over the weekend and will get better laughs through this spell too. Nate is the playboy that is known having a string on women waiting for him, but deep down he is waiting for one certain one, he will need to face the fact he isn’t getting younger and this life isn’t going to be going on forever. Delaney is the lesbian best friend of John’s she has arrived after a break up turning the heads of everyone there while she is looking to figure out what she wants next from her life. The whole cast does give us a strong set of performances throughout with each getting that one moment to shine.
Story – The story here follows a couple looking to spend their weekend away with friend being honest with each other, hoping to help fix their marriage problems, which will lead to the rest of the group following suit, with everything looking to improve themselves over the course of the weekend. This story does get to highlight how important communication in relationships is going to make them stronger and the weekend will help. We do seem to jump into fantasy with characters seeing how they want moments to go, over how they actually go. Everything plays out well and by the end everyone involved will have improved themselves after the weekend.
Themes – Honesty Weekend does give us the basics of a romantic comedy, with most of the characters already being paired up, which gives us a chance to see how they will improve the romance in their lives. Nearly the whole film is set in the weekend getaway location, which shows how people will come together to support changes in life too.
Final Thoughts – Honesty Weekend is a comedy about improve relationships to enjoy time together more.