Le Week-End
Music Box Films | Release Date: March 14, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedMar 12, 2014
They are two intelligent, sophisticated people searching for the spicy condiment they need to keep their relationship fresh during a bittersweet weekend in Paris, and, like the film that frames them, they are smart, substantial and enchanting. Read full review
91
The PlaylistGabe ToroSep 25, 2013
Michell’s handling of the relationship between the two is touching in how little judgment he passes. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 27, 2014
In the capable hands of these fine filmmakers and actors, even its most bitter observations about life and aging are nearly always reliably balanced by moments of warmth, understanding and out-and-out screwball humor. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaMar 14, 2014
When Michell is on his game, as he definitely is with Le Week-End, he unearths small, invaluable and even profound truths about the human condition that are often as inspiring as they are devastating. Read full review
88
New York PostLou LumenickMar 12, 2014
Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are superb as the couple, who use the occasion to drop bombs on each other. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 27, 2014
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 full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 14, 2014
The monologue that Goldblum delivers there, grand with illusion and larded with mouthfuls of canapes, is entirely delicious -- roguish and absurd, but lending the film a zest that it was in danger of losing. [17 March 2014, p.79]
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 13, 2014
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 full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 13, 2014
A smart, ardent, profound movie. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 13, 2014
Don’t be fooled by Mr. Broadbent’s genial sarcasm, Ms. Duncan’s warm smile or the literary felicities of Mr. Kureishi’s script. This is not a movie about the gentle aging of lovable codgers. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 11, 2014
Make room for the modest but affecting pleasures of veteran actors tearing into the subject of golden-years resignation. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounOct 8, 2013
It’s 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 full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramOct 7, 2013
The result? An accomplished, bittersweet drama that's more bitter than sweet. Read full review
80
VarietyDennis HarveySep 25, 2013
Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 25, 2013
The film is imbued with an engaging mix of warmth and prickliness by the lovely, lived-in performances of Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan. Read full review
80
The TelegraphDavid GrittenSep 25, 2013
Sophisticated, sharp and funny, Le Week-End achieves an unusual coup: it’s a film about two older characters that is neither deeply gloomy (like, say, Amour) nor twinkly and cheerily upbeat. Read full review
80
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 25, 2013
For all its flaws - in fact, perhaps because of them - Le Week-End is a work borne from, and provoking, real feeling. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsMar 20, 2014
This late adulthood lark is a treat. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMar 20, 2014
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 full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 12, 2014
Goldblum is always best at being Jeff Goldblum, and his oily/silky charm tends to unbalance the neat, brittle little tragedy we’re watching. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundSep 25, 2013
Both keenly calculated and flowing with offbeat, naturalistic detail, Hanif Kureishi's jewel of a script reflects his sensibilities as a playwright. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJonathan KieferMar 11, 2014
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 full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 2, 2014
Director Roger Michell and his frequent writer Hanif Kureishi (their last film together was Venus) regularly dance to the very cliff’s edge of despair, and only for the grace of good casting do you not wish they’d just jump and get it over with. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 20, 2014
Michell's is a film with somewhere to go -- and that journey is one well worth taking. Read full review
60
The DissolveMike D'AngeloMar 11, 2014
Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy And Rosie Get Laid) sometimes overdoes the emotional-seesaw routine... But director Roger Michell (who’s previously worked with Kureishi on The Mother, Venus, and the miniseries The Buddha Of Suburbia) maintains a slightly jagged rhythm that proves disarming, and he has two magnificent collaborators in Broadbent and Duncan. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinOct 7, 2013
Writer / director team Kureishi and Michell add to their partnership with an insightful look at life-long commitment. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergMar 12, 2014
The end of Le Week-End reveals it to be the thoroughly ordinary melodrama a description suggests — a portrait of former ’60s fire-starters who are perfectly happy to settle for embers. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 13, 2014
The main — and for my money only — attraction in Le Week-End, which was directed by Roger Michell, is the marvelous Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan. She is witty, fiercely intelligent and intensely sexy in the role of Meg, a woman stuck in a failing marriage. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 13, 2014
Le Week-End is a sour and misanthropic film masquerading as an honest and sensitive romance. A painful and unremittingly bleak look at a difficult marriage, it wants us to sit through a range of domestic horrors without offering much of anything as a reward. Read full review
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