Long Weekend – R – 1 hr 31 min
NO SPOILERS Movie Review
Watched in theater Friday March 11, 2021
AMC Lakewood Mall 12 – Lakewood, Washington
13th new movie seen in theater in 2021
Bart goes on a drinking binge and falls asleep in a movie theater after some bad news. He’s awakened by Vienna who wants to go out and have another drink. She doesn’t have a cell phone and carries around a bunch of cash in her purse and thus begins their brief romance surrounded by where she came from and why.
Since this is no spoiler, we can’t get into what Vienna’s secret origins are, but we find out early in the first act. The second act becomes about whether or not Bart believes her, even reaching out to his best friend. The third act comes to a most predictable conclusion.
Whether or not you like this movie will all come down to Vienna’s secret. We’ve seen too many movies, especially romantic comedies that have used this plot device before. Kara and I discussed this — but again we didn’t spoil it — in our just left the theater review below.
Kara disagreed with me, but I didn’t think Bart and Vienna had that much chemistry. For a romance to work, I need to want the characters to get together. Here I barely cared. They seemed more like drinking, hook up buddies than lovers.
The problem with Vienna’s secret badly impacts the ending. There is a major plot hole exposed that I couldn’t get past involving a bank and safety deposit box. If you decide to see this film, and we’re not recommending to do so, then maybe this plot hole will bother you, too. We’ve talked about how important endings are to films, that a great film finishes strong and a good film can be ruined by a subpar ending, in this case it’s a mediocre romance with a cliched story and an ending with a major logic gap. No, thank you.
Rating (out of 5 stars): ⭐️⭐️ (Todd) ⭐️⭐️½½ (Kara)
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