The vacation movie has dramatized the iconic notion of a girls’ trip, the opportunity to get away from a drab, mundane life and explore some new location. Often it is a tropical place, or at least somewhere a lot warmer than New York City in the winter. From movies like Girls Trip to Spring Breakers, romantic comedy and crime territory has been covered by the overarching theme. But what happens when someone goes missing on a trip? This question is the answer that Australian director Kim Farrant sought to find in the Netflix original thriller The Weekend Away.
The Weekend Away is based on the thriller novel by Sarah Alderson of the same name. The novel was inspired by an innocent trip Alderson took to Lisbon, Portugal, with a best friend. Although that trip did not have any deadly consequences, The Weekend Away does. It meditated on concepts of female friendships, especially in one’s twenties and thirties, and how many people do not know what they are doing at that age.
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Leighton Meester, best known for her performances on The CW’s Gossip Girl and ABC’s Single Parents, returns to the big screen after three years. She stars as Beth, the movie’s protagonist. Beth’s best friend, Kate, is portrayed by actress Christina Wolfe, who previously appeared in Batwoman. The remainder of the small cast consists of actors Luke Norris, Ziad Bakri, and Amar Bukvic. The movie, however, begins and ends with Beth and Kate.
The two consider themselves best friends, and they met when Beth studied abroad in England for a semester. They both now live in England, although Beth is an American. Kate had introduced Beth to Rob (Luke Norris), with whom she has a daughter and is now married to him. That marriage does not seem to be thriving, though, judging from the detached way they communicate with each other. Kate and Beth have been slowly drifting away in the time that Beth had her daughter, but when Kate’s marriage comes apart at the seams, the two decide to get away together and travel to Croatia. They expect this to be a trip of indulgence, something where Kate can help feel better about life and rediscover her purpose.
A Best Friend Disappears
Netflix
What ends up happening is the exact opposite: Kate is found dead in the water. The film hides nothing, showing Kate’s body floating in the water as the opening shot. Almost immediately, it is established that something is going to be wrong on this getaway, and the viewer, along with the characters in the movie, is going to have to put together the pieces of what actually happened here. It also sets the expectation that darkness lingers underneath a bright and sunny town shown in the next shot.
And perhaps revealing this fact so soon can be a double-edged sword for the movie. It quickly establishes what is to come and what the film is going to be about, but at the same time, it vastly lowers the stakes. Kate disappears during a night out in the town, leaving Beth in a panic when she realizes that Kate never returned to their luxurious hotel room that night. But because the viewer already knows what most likely has happened, the tension that could have been teased out of this event is nonexistent.
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Kate is everything that Beth is not; she is bold and outgoing, someone willing to drag Beth away for a new adventure. As Kate slyly suggests swimming naked after Beth says she may have forgotten her swimsuit, Beth looks unamused, shyly looking to the side. In the time Kate is alive, her vibrancy fills up the screen. While Beth wears a toned-down shade of light blue for their night out, Kate goes all out and wears sparkly number fit for the club alongside bright red lipstick and high heels. She even says to Beth that Beth needs to get out of her rut and explore her sexuality. And perhaps this is understandable; her marriage has just ended, and she desires to live her life freely.
But here is how the story goes: Beth does not drink that night, nor does she recall doing anything out of the sort. However, she blacks out and wakes up the next morning throwing up. Kate is noticeably absent from the screen. This is pretty relatable, something expected on a normal vacation and girls’ trip. You are going to have more drinks than necessary when trying to escape regular life, and one gets drunk to the point of blacking out, and the other, who keeps insisting on having sex, is not home when the other girl wakes up.
Who Did It?
Netlix
As Beth’s anxiety about Kate not coming home increases, one surprising standout character is Zain (Ziad Bakri), a Syrian taxi driver first seen dropping Beth off at her hotel. At times, he seems to be the only taxi driver in town due to the frequency he appears and is called upon, but he shows Beth compassion in her initial search for Kate and helps look for her. He is reluctant, however, to have his name included in a police report due to the potential of his visa getting revoked. Croatia has a history of accepting refugees from countries in political strife.
There is quite a bit of gaslighting going on at this moment, as Beth’s husband and even the male police officer wave off her concerns. “[Kate] has gone off with a guy and her friend is upset,” the male police officer laughs to a companion in Croatian as Beth sits anxiously in front of them. The report is never filed, and when she returns the next day, a female police officer chides the man for not doing his job properly.
This is a distinct double standard that overtly clouds the beginning of this movie; because Kate is seen as promiscuous and a party girl, men see her as unworthy of being looked for. The problem is instead waved off and pushed back because there is an assumption she will just wander home drunk. Maybe if the roles were reversed and Beth was missing, an alarm would have sounded. The tragedy to occur is distinctly clouded in a veil of blatant sexism.
The Weekend Away does not try to reinvent the plot point where someone mysteriously goes missing, and those who knew them are scrambling to find answers. Its location is not the typical tropical backdrop one would expect an average girls’ trip to go and celebrate their newfound freedom. Instead, the protagonists venture to scenic Croatia in a coastal town, which provides the perfect moody and quiet atmosphere with its old-world European-style charm and mountains looming in the distance.
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And perhaps it is The Weekend Away’s strict adherence to the genre that marks its downfall. The movie fails to break free from the conventional tropes and dynamics created in films where someone goes missing, and it drags on the concept of whodunit for as long as it possibly can. Ridden and layered with twists, each character becomes a suspect in this case. Whether it escorts that Kate may or may not have hired the night of her disappearance, or the unsettling landlord found rifling through their possessions, suspicion is at every corner.
A Thriller Movie Reminiscent of the 90s
Netflix
Leighton Meester as Beth provides a nuanced performance full of close-ups as she dutifully navigates what could have happened that night. Even as the surrounding people insist that she does not know the truth, that Kate will show up okay, she insists that she knows something has gone wrong. The viewers know that her hunch is right, of course, thus demonstrating the nature of their bond and relationship.
Beth, however, is quite a shaky character. As her distrust and paranoia only continue to grow, she lacks any sort of story outside her friend’s disappearance. She lacks a particular growth in her narrative arc that is truly satisfying. While she does eventually uncover the truth behind what has happened, she is still the same Beth introduced at the beginning of the film, except now she is more jaded and hardened by the world. Perhaps that is why she finds solace in Zain, who has left behind a life in Syria due to war and experienced death like Beth.
The Weekend Away has a runtime of ninety minutes, but within that brief period, a lot is packed in there. Underlying social commentary scrapes the surface of experiences of new mothers and immigrants like Zain, but these are smothered under the main plot, and it is how it continues to twist. At times the movie itself can be quite predictable, and the stakes are too low, but it keeps the story fresh by introducing a new twist every five or ten minutes. Reminiscent of nineties films, it provides a solid Friday night movie but fails to deliver something new and exciting in the genre.
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Ashley Hajimirsadeghi
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Writer, author, and aspiring critic. Find me @ashleynassarine.
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