ianlouisiana Right from the start,"Le Week - end" pins its colours to the mast.That Miles Davis soundalike ultra - cool 1950s jazz,the sharp close - ups,the moving cameras,yes folks it's a retro nouvelle vague picture but instead of Moreau or Belmondo it has stolid old Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as pension - age Brits stumbling(literally in his case) around movie - cliché Paris apparently in a bid to save a thirty year marriage that's about as salvageable as the "Titanic". The dialogue has that Oxbridge veneer of cleverness that you just know would never be delivered by any human being except on late - night TV shows replete with smug intellectuals greedy for Channel Four's money.Even Mr Broadbent with his hurt Labrador eyes looks as if he is trying to get his words out as quickly as possible to get it over with. Miss Duncan - his shrewish wife(and if I'm being unkind to shrews I herewith apologise) dons a false smile occasionally but is as unpleasant in her own way as Miss Thora Hird in "A kind of loving". She is the kind of woman who would shrivel a man's gonads at a glance,except for poor old Jim who returns to the scene of the crime like a whipped cur. Mr J.Goldblum has lines even smarter and his New York Intellectual schtick is amusing in his first scene but quickly deteriorates into parody. He plays Jim's old Cambridge buddy(natch),quite possible his alter - ego if you want to go into things a bit more deeply - which I didn't. I bet he liked the soundtrack as he's a nifty jazz pianist himself. Not funny,not dramatic,not romantic,"Le Week - end" joins the legion of British films that flash across the sky like a comet to disappear and come back in five hundred years time when large brains welded to wheelchairs may well wave their tentacles in delight and proclaim it as a masterpiece. It is the sort of film that lends credence to M.Truffaut's oft - quoted maxim that the words "British" and "Cinema" should not be uttered in the same breath. Something that will never be said about him.

JohnnyWeissmuller Le Weekend, directed by Roger Mitchell, is a smartly-written, funny and, at times, acerbic, romantic comedy/melodrama, starring Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent. Here, playing a couple who are spending a weekend in Paris as a means of rejuvenating their marriage and capturing some of the magic from time spent there before. Immediately, nothing goes to plan and romance turns to bickering, teasing, hijinx and a chance encounter with an old friend, played by Jeff Goldblum. Shot on location in Paris, the scenery and sights are a treat in themselves, whilst Hanif Kureishi's script hits most of the right notes. In a way, Le Weekend is akin to an older version of Richard Linklater's wonderful Jesse/Celine trilogy -- if not nearly as good. But it's still a fine film with much to offer those seeking a more mature, lingering romantic comedy that rings true and presents realistic characters and genuine situations

Tony Connell An absolutely wonderful film. Watched it on valentines night with my wife and we both found it poignant, amusing, engrossing and sometimes all too real. It realistically showed the trials and tribulations of any medium to long term relationship... especially one where any magic that had been there is starting to slip, the kids have left and the cracks that have been papered over start to re- appear. Actors excellent especially Morgans (jeff Goldblums) son. A realistic portrait of long term relationships. A nice way to spend an evening.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) This movie is like an unofficial 5th entry to the "Before..."-series (which I truly adore) by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. However, I really hope that the real one, if we get it around 2030 will be better quality-wise. "Le Week-End" could not convince me. We have a couple, who on their 30th wedding anniversary, travel to Paris. I rarely ever had the feeling that they were truly in love with each other. Okay, you could bring up as an argument that after 30 years things aren't that emotional anymore and just return to normal, but sometimes their actions looked downright as if they really only wanted to hurt each other. Comparing this to another performance from 2013, June Squibb in Nebraska (a truly great film by the way), she was certainly rough, but you could always feel that she still loved her man. And that is totally missing here. They seem as if, in real life, they would have been divorced long ago.Jeff Goldblum, who I am usually a great fan of, could not really convince me here either. He has the biggest supporting role. People who know him know that he almost always walks the fine line between great authenticity and almost too extreme behavior. Sadly, here he occasionally crosses it. Nonetheless he is fun to watch as always and is responsible for some of the highlights of the film. Still it was difficult to decide if he was actually a likable character. The one person that definitely was not likable here is Lindsey Duncan's character, who not only lacks subtlety, but behaves really horribly in some situations, such as when her husband falls and she tells him to be a man or when she tells her husband of 30 years that she is gonna go out with a younger man that night.The husband is a bit of a likable victim from start to finish. We find out about his career or nonexistence thereof, his marriage struggles, his health concerns and it all culminates in a great monologue at the full table near the end with people all around him. The whole party is a bit dull though and could have been made much more interesting with all the characters who were the guests there just working as forgettable background actors. Most of the dialogs were written in a convincing way, but there were several scenes which had no real purpose at all, occasionally didn't even fit the characters such as the randomly included pot smoking scene. The final silent walk down the stairs was probably intended to be powerful by the makers, but it left no impression on me at all. It rather felt contradictory to all the hullabaloo that happened minutes before.This film tries to be loud and hip on so many occasions, instead of going for quiet subtlety, which really could have made this work. The frequent sex references (talking about it, moaning...) were mostly more embarrassing than funny and felt also included randomly without any real purpose, just in order to get some cheap laughs.Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi reunited here seven years after making Venus (starring the recently deceased Peter O'Toole), but judging from the outcome and the quality of "Le Week-End" all the sparkle in their collaborations seems gone. Not recommended.