All the Single Laddies
Discovered last night that Weekend, Andrew Haigh's tale of a weekend tryst, which the New York Times' A.O. Scott hails as "one of the most satisfying love stories you are likely to see on screen this year" is already streamable on Netflix! Say what you will, this is why I still subscribe.
Weekend is so true to its premise — an extended hook-up of the sort that seems to happen outside ordinary time — that you can't shake the sense afterward that you've actually spent the weekend with Russell and Glen, too.
Tom Cullen's Russell is eminently crushable, the sweet, earnest relationship-type we all pretend to want, who somehow manages to remain sullenly single. Chris New's Glen represents the other end of the spectrum: the cynical bed-hopping art-fag, who whips out a tape-recorder the morning after for some po-mo art project on one-night stands he's doing.
While that last conceit feels a little forced, it provides a loose motif for the movie, which is, after all, a movie. It also gives a sense of an ending when it comes to it, suggesting that the cynic has given up the critical distance that keeps the truth at arm's length, that artlessness has prevailed over art, sincerity won out over irony — and isn't that what love — true love — is?
The sex is frank without being pornographic — or even, really, particularly erotic (bobbing heads and very earnest slurping sounds is as close as things get to getting steamy). But in truth the movie is not about sex (despite its sexual frankness).
Sex, when you take the taboo (and fear of contamination) out of it, is simply one of any number of ways we get into one another (yes, pun and all). When affection is involved (and obviously it isn't always), sex is empathy in its most literal, immediate and rewarding form. The intensity of that sense of identification with an other can change us in profound ways.
What's wonderful about Weekend is how it sees and shows sex as one of a vast repertoire of ways we question, cajole, and communicate with one another, a legitimate and frankly wonderful way we make meaning of certain mysteries of identity and existence we can't confront alone.
And it poignantly explores the ways in which a profound physical connection can sometimes give us a sense of intimate knowledge — of knowing the other — that we might presume supersedes the pesky details of their personal history. We are not necessary mistaken in this presumption, but the application of this knowledge often proves, um, problematic.
It's this seemingly backward approach to intimacy that accounts for many of the film's best, most authentic and awkward moments. It is, ultimately, a story about understanding, but misunderstanding what it is you're understanding.
That's something we've all been through — gay, straight, whatever — which is why A.O. Scott was right to call it "one of the most satisfying love stories you are likely to see on screen this year" and not "one of the most satisfying gay love stories you are likely to see on screen this year".
And satisfying is a good word for it. Weekend is satisfying in its unassuming humanity. In its ability to tell this simple story of a very complicated human emotion.
Sounds great, particularly the streaming on Netflix part. Thanks for the great review, Mike.
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Very well written. I am now convinced I must see this movie. You should review movies and books for a paper or magazine as a part-time job!
Keep writing please, update more often.
thanks
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Wow - thanks Mike: I wouldn't have known this was on Netflix streaming without ye, and I'd seen the previews but promptly forgotten all about it. Watched last night, and, well, that has to be the most true-to-experience romantic (?!) film I've ever seen...I kept forgetting it was contrived narrative and was just THERE (probably from a lifetime of falling for Glens, but probably being one myself); gorgeous stuff. So, again, thanks: always a pleasure reading the blog - happy 2012 to you & the lad!
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Happy New Year to you, too, Fred!
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I can't believe I missed that film! Watched it on Netflix last night. Thanks so much for pointing it out. I really loved it. The moment that absolutely wrecked me was when they're in bed and Glen is role playing as Russell's dad.
I also really appreciated the complications of Glen not really wanting a relationship (and all that entails) but wanting to be able to still "be gay" when the straights come around.
Thanks again for drawing my attention to it Mike!
Happy New Year! Keep up the good work.
Steve
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I saw the movie and I wasn't at all stirred by it. Maybe I am too jaded. Maybe I am just too old to feel the whole 20-something gay angst!
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I think it's interesting in the context of gay film. In some of the cliches it embraces and others that it rejects it's a window into where we are culturally. It wasn't an emotional experience for me but I could relate to it in a way I can't relate to, say, Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds. But that's just me.
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