Le Week-End 2013

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Before long the movie -- as neatly constructed as it is -- isn't really behaving like a movie, but more like life, as it's lived by a fractious pair of empty nesters who find themselves at a crossroads. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A bickering middle-aged English couple return to Paris to celebrate their ill-fated 30th anniversary in this ruefully funny delight from director Roger Michell and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Smart, substantial and enchanting. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: All sorts of talent has been chucked away here by the director's heavy touch and the script's naked contrivance. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: By its ambiguous yet hopeful end, we're at one with Nick and Meg: Sometimes, you just have to dance. Somehow, you go on. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, AV Club: The thoroughly ordinary melodrama a description suggests-a portrait of former '60s fire-starters who are perfectly happy to settle for embers. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Director Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") has the good sense to step back and let Broadbent and Duncan work their magic on Hanif Kureishi's script. They don't disappoint. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: Wisely, director Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") does not burden Hanif Kureishi's literate, witty and emotionally nuanced script and the impeccable performances with an attempt at personal style. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Once the characters start explaining the sources of their unhappiness, the drama becomes less compelling, largely because their problems seem far from insurmountable. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A long slog of marital dysfunction. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: While the overall film is more mild, and ends with a somewhat silly deus-ex-Goldblumina, the good of seeing senior citizens treated maturely on film far outweighs the bad. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: A finely matched Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan explore the wrinkles of marriage with humor and honesty. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: "Le Week-End" is a sour and misanthropic film masquerading as an honest and sensitive romance. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: Don't run away with the idea that this is a film for your parents. There is no reason why people under 40 or pushing 30 shouldn't see it. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: [It] lacks a solid plot or even much structure -- yet it works beautifully. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: It's easy to tire (if not despair) of them, but both lead actors are in fine sparring form, and the story is rescued and revived, just in time, by a delectable cameo from Jeff Goldblum. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Since it's Broadbent, Duncan and Goldblum doing the skipping, trashing and mimicking, their second adolescence is great fun to watch. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are plummy perfection as a British pair in their 60s who hope to reenergize their marriage with a trip to Paris. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: A mellow, playful, slightly melancholy atmosphere pervades much of "Le Week-End," the latest collaboration between the screenwriter Hanif Kureishi and the director Roger Michell. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Even the redoubtable Broadbent succumbs to unchecked pathos and self-loathing. Only Duncan's gorgeous suppleness and alertness keep Meg from seeming cruel and overly acidic. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Not exactly a breezy getaway, the film visits the sites, and drops down on rougher terrain, too. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: This film doesn't feel obliged to pick a winner or lob easy answers; it aims to observe, with humor and humanity, with penetration and without oversimplifying. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Le Week-End" is a ruefully funny look at a long-term marriage. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This extra-dry mix of drama and comedy is supposed to reflect the complexities of real life; but as a movie, it's so schematic and schizoid, it leaves us scratching our berets. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: A nuanced romance for grown-ups. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: Sad, sweet, dark, funny and possibly even redemptive. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Lightly played, often very funny and shot all over Paris with energy and wit, and boosted by superb, inquiring turns from Broadbent and Duncan. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Make room for the modest but affecting pleasures of veteran actors tearing into the subject of golden-years resignation. Read more

Jonathan Kiefer, Village Voice: The great insight in director Roger Michell's fourth collaboration with writer Hanif Kureishi is its vision of Paris as an arena equally amenable to romantic comedy and sulking tragedy. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Le Week-End is a marital disintegration-reintegration drama that opens with a dose of frost and vinegar and turns believably sweet-and unbelievably marvelous, in light of what had seemed a depressing trajectory. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: An alternately prickly and knowing tone poem to desire and disappointment whose light touch belies far deeper, darker human understandings. Read more