Le Week-End Review

Grade: D-
One-Liner: It's about a weekend, but it felt like a decade.

On paper, Le Week-End seemed like my version of the perfect movie. It tells the story of an elderly British couple, Nick and Meg, trying to rekindle the flame after 30 years of marriage by taking a trip to Paris. It's directed by Roger Mitchell, who is responsible for the romantic classic Notting Hill and stars the endearing Jim Broadbent and the standoffish-yet-loveable Lindsay Duncan.

But just like Meg and Nick's marriage, on-paper perfection doesn't always translate into reality. The mind-numbingly slow story featured a malevolent wife with rash tendencies, who treats her husband like trash as he sits there and takes it. Neither character was particularly commendable or charming, so when they had milliseconds of loving affection, I had no real reason to care.

It was pathetic to watch Nick desperately plead for Meg's affection, and it was nauseating to see Meg spend all of what little money they had on outrageous hotel rooms, custom suits, and five course meals. Her bouts of spontaneity weren't endearing, but rather ridiculous. And the couple's collective moments of painful, public honesty were cringeworthy.

Overall, it felt like a movie I'd be subjected to watch in a film studies class. People would sit around and discuss the impressive dialog and complex human emotions, while I would roll my eyes knowing that no one in the room truly felt connected to these weakly-written shadows of real humans.