The Weekend Away Review: Meester's Film Is Gone Girl Minus Suspense & Thrills
With Netflix's The Weekend Away, Leighton Meester finds herself in a situation familiar to many cinematic heroes. A psychological thriller in the vein of Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, The Weekend Away holds all the elements of a classic missing-persons mystery. Unfortunately, the film, which is based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Alderson (also the writer of the script here), lacks the same thrills and suspense that have pushed so many others in this genre to great heights. Director Kim Farrant finds moments of cleverness, but also takes too much time to up the stakes. Though Meester puts on a solid performance atop an intriguing plot, The Weekend Away doesn't supply enough thrills to make it an entertaining watch.
New mother Beth (Meester) has been pulled away from her daughter and unhappy marriage in London to indulge in a fun-filled weekend in Croatia with her best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe). Her first night there, Beth is hoping for a nice dinner and to turn in early, but Kate swiftly pulls her into a wild night out… which proves to be a fatal decision. Beth wakes the next morning to find Kate missing, and despite her best efforts, no one seems to believe that something awful happened. Armed with only a taxi driver named Zain (Ziad Bakri) as an ally, Beth sets out to uncover just what happened to her friend.
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The Weekend Away doesn't waste much time in getting to Kate's disappearance; by the 15-minute mark, she's gone and Beth is worried. One would then expect Farrant to dive right into this confounding mystery, but The Weekend Away instead takes a slower approach. The pacing is uneven, with a more restrained start that later gives way
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