film reel image

film reel image

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

The Weekend Away 2022 * * * Stars

WEEKEND WARRIOR

"This is a nightmare". Ya think? I mean how does a girls trip go so wrong, so out of sorts? Welcome to 2022's The Weekend Away. Its film setting of coastal Croatia looks so darn snazzy.

"Weekend" is a thriller with a high resting heart rate. And yup, it just gets higher as it goes along. It's a whodunit, populated by lots of who dun did its. You'll be hooked but at the same time you'll probably say, "come on now, easy boss".

In The Weekend Away, the lead is played by thirtysomething Leighton Meester. Meester is salt of the earth and the veritable anchor here. Looking a little weathered and distraught throughout, Leighton gives a natural, forceful performance. Heck, I've never seen her in this light before (I mean a while ago she was decent in The Roommate).

"Weekend" while almost too anfractuous for its own good, is about a woman named Beth (Meester). Beth comes to a foreign country to see her bestie only to have said bestie vanish and eventually become murdered. Beth while a possible suspect in her own right, must figure out who's responsible for dispatching her girly gal pal (Kate played by the fetching Christina Wolfe). 

The Weekend Away is a doozy. Call it death on the Split. It's also an enthralling doozy if I might say so myself. It answers the question of what if the gender-affixed Lifetime Network and Netflix joined alliances to suck you in dry (Netflix is ultimately the real distributor here). 

"Weekend", with its flashbacks done at regular intervals, its Sliver laud, and its perfectly reared running time, is a series of red herrings. Let's just say it's one giant red herring. Added to that, there are enough twists and turns to make Chubby Checker proud. And that ending, well it's totally flippant. It made me throw my hands up in the air. Sadly I'm too worn out to give it "away".  

Written by Jesse Burleson

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