"Le Week-End" Was Le Pew

***SPOILER ALERT***

It should have been a good film. With talent like Jim Broadbent and Jeff Goldblum, Le Week-End seemed like a slam dunk. My wife and I watched it at the Music Hall last week.

(Watch the trailer here.)

An elderly couple returns to Paris on their anniversary, having not been back since their union thirty years before. Hoping to rekindle a love grown somewhat stale over the many years, Nick (Broadbent) even books the very hotel room they'd occupied on their previous visit — only to be rebuffed by wife Meg (played by Lindsay Duncan). 

After lavishing a large amount of their modest supply of euros on a taxi driver — for driving them past all the places Nick wanted to "stop and enjoy" — Meg insists on taking a room at a shockingly expensive hotel.

The opportunities for redemption abound, but are routinely thwarted by Meg's vicious behavior. Vacillating from sexy [sic] and adoring to cold and indifferent — even violent — in the space of seconds, Meg never misses a chance to reject Nick, who, in an act of desperation, comes on a little too strong at one point. Meg lashes out, sending Nick stumbling into a painful fall — with her standing over him, mocking his obvious suffering.

The only real pleasure Meg seems to derive from the trip — besides from criticizing Nick and forcing him to walk himself to exhaustion, on an injured knee — is in an expensive meal, which, due to her other irresponsible decisions, they now can't afford. She deals with this like any Baby Boomer might — by running out on the bill. Nick, a pathetic character at the best of times, acquiesces in her theft. 

Meg charges expensive books to their credit card and expensive clothes from the hotel shops "to the room" — which she calls her "mantra for the weekend."

By chance, the pair bump into Morgan (Jeff Goldblum) on the streets of Paris, a mind-meltingly self-involved but nevertheless rich, famous, successful author, and Nick's protégé back in their Cambridge days.

Morgan invites them to a dinner party, where Meg ignores Nick all evening and even makes plans to ditch him later for the, er, company of another man.

Nick stumbles across Morgan's son, alone in his room, ensconced in marijuana and a bottle of brandy, where the son bemoans his father's distance and Nick speaks hopefully of love.

Later, Nick is destroyed by Meg's news — consistent with her cruel character, she shares her plans with seeming glee.

Toasted as the true source of Morgan's success, Nick delivers a sorrowful speech in front of the assembled guests, strangers all, laying bear his life's many failures, including a hopelessly dependent adult son, the physical torments of old age, and an awful marriage.

Interestingly, he concludes by stating that, being "of the Left", he still has "hope" — despite having had his rather uninspiring career as a philosophy professor ruined by a hypersensitive student empowered by the irrational apparatchiks of political correctness (an enjoyable bit of irony, to be sure).

Amazingly, he actually leaves the party with Meg, rudely snubbing Morgan's pleasant (if overbearing) attempts to graciously see them off.

Returning to their hotel, arm in arm, they learn that their credit card is maxed out and the bill has well exceeded anything they could hope to pay.

To this, they respond with a cowardice and inconsideration totally consistent with their characters — by fleeing from their responsibilities.

They then take refuge in Morgan's kindness, with no hesitation or embarrassment — no doubt comforted by the claim, surely communicated by Nick to his philosophy students, that morality is situational, shame nothing more than a Victorian construct, and Morgan's wealth, being that of a One Percent-er, rightfully theirs for the taking.

Le Week-End wasn't plagued by bad acting; Broadbent was brilliantly beholden and bafoon-ish, Duncan was wonderfully (if wickedly) whimsical, and Goldblum was spot-on superficial and superbly insufferable. 

It was just a sickening story about human weakness, and the way that weakness can create a sense of dependency, entitlement, and resentment. If those who watch it leave feeling contempt for Nick and Meg — maybe hoping that she will get hit by a bus, or he will grow a pair and leave her — perhaps something good could be said of it.

Watch Le Week-End, if you like. Chances are, like me, you'll finish it wanting that ninety-three minutes of your life back.