For a six-year stretch (2007―2012), Leighton Meester played a principal character on “Gossip Girl,” a purposefully camp teen drama which was both revered and reviled by critics and became one of the most influential shows of its era. Fizzling out in it’s final season, the show nonetheless provided ideal springboards to bigger and better things for Meester and co-lead Blake Lively.
While Lively’s film career prospered, Meester’s hit the skids. Since the show ended, she’s appeared in a half-dozen critically-panned, colossal theatrical flops, took a stab at Broadway (“Of Mice and Men”), and released a well-received pop-folk album (“Heartstrings”).
“The Weekend Away” is the kind of movie actresses make when they wish to prove they’re more than just a pretty face—or are desperate to be taken seriously. Following in the footsteps of Farrah Fawcett (“Extremities”), Charlize Theron (“Monster”), Brie Larson (“Room”), and Kate Winslet (“The Reader”), Meester wears no make-up, dresses in frumpy, unflattering “costumes,” appears to have put on a few pounds (ostensibly to simulate postpartum weight gain), and goes “method.”
Too Many ‘Red Herrings’
Beth wakes the next morning, recalling next to nothing of the night before, and Kate is nowhere to be found. Their suite is a mess and something looking like blood is seen near broken glass. Confused, hung-over, and at a loss as to what to do next, Beth calls Zain (Ziad Bakri), a cab driver who brought her to the hotel. He’s willing to help with the Kate situation but only up to a point as he’s in the country illegally. A subsequent plea to local detective Pavic (Amar Bukvic) meets with indifference as Kate is not officially “missing” yet, and he’s grown weary of multiple foreigners getting blotto and disappearing in his town.
Written by TV scribe Sarah Alderson (based on her debut novel of the same name), “The Weekend Away,” with just a tweak here and there, could have been a parody of blow-outs gone wrong along the lines of “The Hangover.” Instead, it is simultaneously a half-baked and overcooked genre cliché festival. Virtually everyone with a speaking role becomes a suspect at some point (including Beth) and the screenplay far exceeds the acceptable level of mystery/thriller “red herrings.”
Not So Thrilling Thriller
In following the tattered whodunit road map, the filmmakers toss up a false ending or two prior to their final reveal and, while it doesn’t make a bit of sense, there were no previous clues pointing to this person—only explanations afterwards. That’s no way to present a respectable mystery/thriller. It’s no wonder the embargo for press reviews didn’t expire until opening day.
It won’t take most attentive viewers long to notice the similarities between what’s going down here to events which took place in Italy in 2007 to exchange student Amanda Knox. Being an American accused of a capital crime with damning but questionable evidence in a foreign country is beyond nerve-wracking. Tack on multiple years in prison prior to three prolonged trials would decimate the psyche of even the strongest-willed among us.
Beth doesn’t go through nearly this same level of effrontery and oppression and, maybe if something like what happened to Knox been worked into the script, the movie would have turned out better. It certainly couldn’t have made it any worse. For a more detailed accounting of what took place with Knox, it would be well worth your time to check out the ear-pinning 2016 documentary “Amanda Knox,” also on Netflix.
At 35-years-old, Meester still has more than a few years left as a leading lady, but if it is indeed her desire to be taken seriously as an actress, she should seek out deeper, further-reaching supporting/character roles in projects with far more meat on the bone. Either that or make another album.
Presented on Netflix in English with infrequently subtitled Croatian.
