Weekend

Andrew Haigh’s simple love story may be based around a gay couple but it will resonate with a much wider audience. Two people hole up together for a weekend pick over live and love and both emerge better for it. It’s a beautifully drawn, insightful and deeply moving film.

Painfully shy, lonely Russell (Tom Cullen) leaves his mate’s house and heads into town to a gay club looking for company. He ends up being rescued from an unsuitable match by the confident and ballsy Glen (Chris New). What starts off as a simple one-night stand grows into something much more as they start to get to know each other properly and they spend the next two days in and out of bed, drinking and taking drugs and sharing their stories with each other. They are from entirely different ends of the spectrum – Russell is out but uncomfortable with the realities of his sexuality, Glen is unashamed of who he is and won’t be cowed by anyone – but they have a deep connection. Their relationship, however brief, will

Haigh does a wonderful job building the relationship in a realistic way – he hasn’t fashioned the kind of Hollywood love story where it’s all walks in the park and montages set to songs about female empowerment. This is a love story played out in the bleak concrete wilderness of one of England’s less glamourous cities and Haigh doesn’t try to gussy up that harsh environment, just as he doesn’t try to dress up the relationship with soft lighting and shots of the two of them staring romantically at each other. It’s messy and imperfect, they don’t always agree and it’s their differences that propel them forward more than anything else.

Cullen delivers one of the performances of the year in Weekend. Russell is the romantic heart of the film, shy and bumbling and utterly endearing despite the reserve. It is absolutely criminal that he hasn’t, at the very least, been recognised with a BAFTA nomination (possibly the frank approach to sex scenes were off-putting for the stuffier end of the Academy). New has the showier role but does a great job of stripping back Glen’s bravado to reveal someone far more vulnerable than the façade he projects.

Weekend is so well done that you’d want to be the kind of person who pinches babies not to be moved by it. A fine achievement, it deserves a wide audience. If you are the kind of person who appreciates the likes of Before Sunrise and Brief Encounter, this is the film for you.

Stars: ****