Weekend

Stellar reviews from Indie Wire, The AV Club, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and no less than three NYT pieces cheering Andrew Haigh's gay romance Weekend, opening today in New York. A.O. Scott calls it "astonishingly self-assured, unassumingly profound" and "one of the most satisfying love stories you are likely to see on screen this year." For once, a British gay story unfolds away from London or Oxbridge; this was shot in Nottingham. Writer-director Haigh (a longtime film editor) further won me over with his comment on gay cinema, “I was always frustrated, and angry sometimes, about the stories that people were telling, which were either coming-out stories or frothy, sexy comedies which weren’t funny or sexy.”

Dennis Lim writes a wide-ranging think piece on gays in film, reaching all the way back to Parker Tyler's book Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality in the Movies. He says:

“Weekend” is the exception that proves the rule: As gay experiences have become more varied, and as the conversation about being gay has evolved, gay films have largely failed to keep up. A wide swath of so-called gay cinema “never represented how I felt about being gay, ever,” Mr. Haigh said. “I haven’t got muscles and I don’t live in West Hollywood.” Often overlooked are the subtle complications that have come with progress. “People are accepting you but perhaps not fully,” he said. “And do you want to be accepted fully?”

Although Mr. Haigh resisted turning his characters into mouthpieces, he said he thought of them as embodying conflicting impulses. Glen, who prides himself on his difference, lashes out at homophobic insults and is sensitive to entrenched biases and perceived slights. Russell is out to his circle of straight friends but remains coy with them, often resorting to half-truths and evasions, a fact of life for many gay people who try to assimilate into straight culture.

“One represents this notion of freedom and struggle and fight against the mainstream, and one represents security and a comfortable life, just wanting to be like everybody else.” Mr. Haigh, 38, said. He acknowledged that he once “ricocheted between the two” but now occupies a middle ground.

Nathaniel Rogers also interviewed Haigh. He says it was the straight actor who tried to hide his orientation because he thought people would react differently to his performance if they knew he wasn't gay.

Please go see it.

Comments

[Elliott Mackle]

Trailer really makes me want to see this. So much better than the warmly tepid review in the NYTimes.