In director Roger Michell’s (Notting Hill) latest, Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan star as Nick and Meg, a long-married couple who return to Paris for the first time since their honeymoon to rekindle the spark in their relationship.
Before they’ve even arrived in the City of Lights, the two are bickering, and things take a turn for the worse when they arrive at their plain, somewhat decrepit, hotel. Rejecting their reservation and checking into a posh, ludicrously expensive suite elsewhere, it’s clear they both want to reclaim some of the romance of their early years, they’re just not sure how to do it. Current stresses – such as the state of their love life, their dwindling finances, their unambitious son – threaten to derail their plans.
Featuring a sparkling, clever script by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette), and spot-on performances by Broadbent and Duncan, Le Week-end is an intelligent, poignant, and often very funny portrait of a couple trying to figure out where to go from this point in their marriage. Jeff Goldblum provides a hilarious supporting turn as an immensely successful (and completely insufferable) former colleague of Nick’s.
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Still from Le Week-end.