Reviewed by GREG KING

Director: Andrew Haigh

Stars: Tom Cullen, Chris New.

A gay Brief Encounter?
Weekend is a simple yet honest depiction of two strangers making a connection physically, emotionally and intellectually. Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise is the template for this romantic drama about two people who meet and spend the weekend together discussing love, their hopes, fears, identity, and sexual politics. The major difference here is that the central couple is a pair of twentysomething gay men. As such Weekend invites comparison with Hettie Macdonald’s film version of Jonathan Harvey’s play Beautiful Thing and Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette.
Russell (Tom Cullen) works as a lifeguard at the local swimming pool and lives in a high rise tenement block in Nottingham. He is self-conscious, reserved, and prefers his solitude. One Friday night he heads out to a local gay bar, where he meets Glen (Chris New, a stage actor making his feature film debut), a proudly out and outspoken gay artist. The one-night stand turns into something else.
Glen pulls out a tape recorder and interviews Russell about the previous night’s encounter. He questions whether Russell is entirely comfortable with his sexuality, which initially disconcerts him. Glen explains that the taped conversation is part of an art project through which he is exploring questions of sexual identity with all of his conquests. The pair connects on a deeper level over the course of the weekend, and their burgeoning relationship becomes more poignant and intimate. The pair spend their time in bed, walk the streets and talk at length. But Glen is due to leave for the US on Monday for a two-year course, and Russell wrestles with his emotions.
Weekend is dialogue driven, and rarely leaves the confines of Tom’s apartment, which gives the film both a claustrophobic feel but also a surprisingly intimate feel. Shot on a low budget, Weekend is a personal film for writer/director Andrew Haigh, whose first film, Greek Pete, was a docudrama about a year in the life of a male escort in London. His sophomore feature deals with some universal themes about love and relationships and offers some perceptive insights into the two characters.
The film is essentially a two-hander character study, and at times resembles a stage play adapted for the screen. However, newcomers Cullen and New develop a wonderful rapport, and their naturalistic performances create well-rounded and sympathetic characters. Cullen also won the Best Actor award at the 2011 Nashville Film Festival for his performance which hints at Russell’s vulnerability and need for love.
The film has a tight script and structure, but Haigh left plenty of room for his two actors to improvise their dialogue, which gives it a naturalistic feel. Haigh comes from a background in editing (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Mister Lonely, etc), but his handling of the material is quite assured. There are a couple of frank sex scenes here, but Haigh handles them in straightforward fashion. They are not likely to cause as much controversy as the very frank sex scenes in the forthcoming Steve McQueen drama Shame, starring Michael Fassbender as a sex addict on a downward spiral.
Cinematographer Ula Pontikos films with hand held camera and using lots of close-ups, and he manages to give this lowkey, low budget film a semi-documentary feel. Weekend was filmed entirely in Nottingham, the grey and bleak setting for many classic working class British dramas like Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, etc.
This sensitive comedy/drama effectively challenges some long held stereotyped images of gay people in the cinema, and it seems more concerned with depicting realistic, everyday experiences. With its honesty, warmth, maturity, bittersweet nature, powerfully emotional journey, and strangely endearing characters, Weekend is a winning film that should find a niche in art house cinemas. It may even find cross over appeal for straight audiences!

***