Weekend, from writer and director Andrew Haigh, is a moving, heartwarming, sexually graphic depiction of the interaction between two men over the course of one weekend – a simple idea portrayed with a frank openness. Russell, played by Tom Cullen, is a reserved life guard who after skipping out on a bunch of his straight friends finds himself picking up Glen, Chris New, at a local gay bar and subsequently the pair develop instant chemistry.
The morning after Glen, an aspiring artist, records Russell’s experience (albeit drunkenly muddled) of the previous night on a dictaphone for an art project and the tentatively awkward interaction between the two characters as they sit in bed talking is at once realistic and devoid of pretence. The unabashed realism of the movie is consistent throughout as this intuitively written drama skips the need for reliance on any of the festival of cloying cliches that sometimes plague the depiction of gays in cinema. What develops is a genuine story of mutual attraction through absolutely stellar performances from the two stars. Set largely in Russell’s apartment, though occasionally moving around, Weekend is remarkably simple in its execution taking a mixture of handheld and static, documentary style camera work that really pulls in the viewer with plenty of intimate moments.
Powerfully intense chemistry between Tom Cullen and Chris New, along with an intelligent script, really bring this modern kitchen-sink drama to life. Russell’s character is shy, reserved, out but not in your face about it, and filled with anxiety – avoiding public displays of his homosexuality. In antithesis Glen is in many ways his mirror image, unfalteringly honest and brash, he is the political gay – arguing with straight people in a bar over the underlying homophobia, that may or not have been present, in their complaint about noise. The new relationship between the two hits a bump when Glen reveals he’s about to leave for Portland on a two year course, and it’s indicative of the level of acting that the anxiety of feelings between these two guys is highly apparent. Unable to stay away from each other they spend the time they have together, they go out, drink and take drugs and share the intimacies of themselves, covering a range of topics, trivial and profound, with the kind of rawness that his helped along by the influence of alcohol and drugs.
Andrew Haigh’s previous work editing on a plethora of well known movies, like Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, has led to this movies very fluid scene momentum and a brilliantly self-aware script that is honest and graphic in it’s depiction of emotion, sex, drug use, and relationships. In discussion of Glen’s post-coital dictaphone art project the film discusses the idea of its own audience stating that the gays will come to see it in order to glimpse some cock, but the straights won’t because it’s got nothing to do with their world – a view that perhaps has some merit, but is a massive over generalisation.
This self-awareness is present once again at the end, with Glen asking “so, is this our Notting Hill moment?”, drawing attention to the dramatic expectation within the viewer for a happy resolution, the film takes the altogether more natural approach in giving us a heartfelt and believable ending. In a scene recalling the end of Lost in Translation, dialogue is drowned out by background noise as Russell confronts Glen at the train station. A brilliant and emotional moment, hilariously fractured by catcalls of abuse from onlookers.
Emotionally intelligent and relevant, Weekend shows a frank reality of a male on male relationship heretofore unrealised in cinema. To call this a triumph of ‘gay cinema’ is to cheapen the reality of it as such semantic distinctions are irrelevant – good cinema is good cinema regardless of sexuality. Weekend is heartfelt, honest, filthy, and definitely good cinema.
Weekend is out now on Blu-ray and DVD
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