Review: Le Week-End (Roger Michell, 2013)

In cinemas February 20. 
Directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Enduring Love and Venus) and written by frequent screenwriting collaborator Hanif Kureishi, Le Week-End is a strange little film. Equally saddening and heartwarming, there is a resounding truthfulness and romanticism to this study of a veteran married British couple, Nick and Meg Burrows (Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan). Celebrating their 30^th wedding anniversary with a rare exotic escape in Paris they are amidst a disillusioning crisis that they seem aloof to resolving. Will this weekend heal their wounds, or be an opportunity to say goodbye? Lightly avoiding sentimentality and punishing misery I found this quite delightful.
Both academics – Nick is a philosophy professor, Meg a biology teacher – are experiencing an unsettlement in their long-term contentedness. What soon becomes clear is that Nick is anxious about money, amongst several other ailments. He is harbouring a secret he fears to disclose to Meg and is wracked with the nerve-shredding sense that he and Meg have lost their spark altogether. He remains firmly committed to a woman he fears doesn’t love him anymore. Being the kind of man he is, there could be no one else. Does she feel the same way about him? Meg finds that her sexuality has awakened, just as Nick seems to have lost all hope. One of the most affecting moments is when Nick sits alone drinking through their mini bar stock listening to Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ on his headphones.
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