Rent Le Week-End (2013)

Sad - Le Week-End review by JU

This was a film that I was looking forward to I was disappointed. Good idea of a story, but I thought it was very poorly told. The Acting was good the only redeeming part.

Slight, unrealistic film redeemed by good acting - Le Week-End review by PV

In some ways this film is very irritating and smug - the sort of thing cobbled together by arty leftwing times in Hampstead, all too used to being self-obsessed at their Islington dinner parties.

It is, however, redeemed by 2 things: 1) the sheer quality of the acting all round, esp from Jim Broadbent; 2) a bang-on speech by his character at the end (the reference for a former poly university as a factory producing idiocy will ring a bell with many who have studied or taught at such places).

Worth a watch to pass the time - but as flimsy and unsatisfying and an amuse-bouche really...

Some negatives about the film: some events are so unbelievable as to be ludicrous - I just do not believe risk-averse boring teachers aged 60 would behave that way; the female character here is very odd - almost schizophrenic - and it's amazing anyone would put up with her for a weekend, let alone a 30 year marriage; a senior lecturer would not be sacked for making one comment - a complaints procedure would mean at most suspension, and probably not even that, so the writer is using a skewed plot point here; apparently, this wife is a schoolteacher of biology GCSE - very unrealistic, as she is married to a lecturer in philosophy, and she's just the wrong personality type (the screenplay writer Hanif Kureshi is clearly ignorant about real life schools and colleges these days, as many are, cf Martin Amis); some set pieces are reminiscent of the worst of pretentious rep theatre, all wordless and contrived; the ages of the leads are a bit off - if this is set in 2013, then someone in their late 50s would not be of the 60s generation listening to Bob Dylan - they would more likely be into Queen and Elton John, or prog rock, which was fashionable in the early/mid 70s.

Pretty bad - Le Week-End review by MA

So much about this film is wrong. It starts out as a true to life story about a long-married couple but it can't decide if it wants to be a comedy, a farce, and tragedy , a bit of social commentary or what.  It ends being  a mixture  but mostly a barely watchable and superficial   tragedy. The script doesn't seem to know anything about  the life of a couple  like that.  Familiarity and complacency can often lead to a mixture of acceptance and irritation, of both self and other. But is this case it has led to despair, self-loathing and contempt. The Lindsey Duncan character  is a good example of borderline personality disorder and its hard to imagine her ever having been any different. The acting, or should I say overacting, is good of course and the Jeff Goldblum character offers an unlikely post twist.  The ending, and this is save you watching the film, has the couple more imprisoned by delusion than they ever were. This is not what  life after 60 is.  Don't bother.