The woman's body floats face down in dark waters as the gloomy cello music swells. A quick title and dissolving later and the water, without the body, is now bright and attractive. The camera moves over a picturesque Croatian coastal town. It's all sun and palm trees as the bright-eyed new mother Beth (Leighton Meester) makes her way by taxi to the girls' weekend with best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe).
In a free fall after the breakup of her marriage, the whole trip is on Kate, including the most violent AirBnB, raw oysters and copious amounts of alcohol. They are best friends from Beth's semester abroad in England, during which Kate introduced Beth to her current husband Rob (Luke Norris). The women deviated shortly after the birth of Beth Aster's daughter. By the end of the weekend, Beth and Kate will be one of them dead.
Written by Sarah Alderson from her own novel and directed by Kim Farant, Netflix's new thriller "The Weekend Away" is cut from the same fabric as those great 90s thrillers like "Double Jeopardy", where the plot has more twists and turns than a serpentine roads that take Beth's taxi to her AirBnB. But that's good. The pleasure of such a thriller is to get lost in your bars and get caught in the spinning web.
Pharant and cameraman Noah Greenberg capture the alluring sunny beauty of Split, Croatia with smooth camera movements. Pink sunsets contrast with ancient stone buildings. The film's creators frame the actors like classic postcards or vacation photos, the cityscape always in the distance behind them. Even during the film's darkest twists and turns, the tourist vibes remain as if the whole film is told through a slideshow, summarizing the most catastrophic escape ever.
Contrary to both temperament and style, introverted Beth has numb hair and no makeup, choosing a green knit dress for a great evening out; the extrovert Kate, on the other hand, wears bright red lips and blue-green sequins. Mister is excellent at mixing the new mother's exhaustion with the excitement she obviously feels when she reunites with Kate. Meanwhile, Wolfe buzzes through her brief appearance, God knows what, and ready to paint the city red.
Their "one night of excitement" to get Beth out of her rut starts at a smoky neon bar where they meet several handsome men and ends with missing Kate. Unfortunately, the kick-off reduces much of the tension here, as we know Kate's fate long before Beth. What makes this part of the film, however, is the chemistry between Beth and Zane (an avid Ziad Bakri), a taxi driver and a Syrian refugee who helps her get back into the night. Does all this make logical sense? Not really. But Bakri saturates his character with such a rich interior and personal code of ethics that you almost buy what the film sells.
