The Weekend (Sheridan De Myers, 2018): USA

Reviewed by: Matthew Dagenais, AFI Film Festival, Hollywood, CA

The Weekend, directed by Stella Meghie, is a gripping romantic comedy set in modern day America featuring a cast of five amazing actors, Sasheer Zamata (Sadee), Tone Bell (Brad) , DeWanda Wise (Margaret), Y’lan Noel (Abury) and Kym Whitley (Sadee’s Mom) that set off on a weekend vacation. Sadee is the main character of the film, she is a stand up comedian in her mid twenties, and the film begins with her preforming at a local comedy club, although her comedy draws waves of laughter from the audience, it seems a little to real the stories and jokes she makes as she makes fun of her past relationship, which later on revealed was with Tone Bell (Brad). The film is nominated for an audience award at the 2018 AIF Film Festival as well as a people choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The next scene sets up… The weekend. Hence the title of the film, this story takes place in three separate events; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Sadee and Brad, long time friends and Ex’s, are going on vacation to Sadee’s mothers cabin for the weekend, however there is a huge tension when Brad brings his new pretty girlfriend Margaret along for the ride.  Even more tension arrises when they show up to the cabin and Sadee’s mother is renting on of the rooms of her home to a handsome young stranger named Aubury, played by Y’lan Noel.

There is a heavy tension between all four characters because there is two hot guys and two hot girls away in the woods for the weekend and two are single and two aren’t but theres relations between some of them that are unknown until later on in the film.  These tensions are often risen with the use of comedy from Sadee.  She is very open and honest and does not really have a filter when she speaks, she points out the other girls mistakes very openly and ridicules her in front of everyone making her look bad and making the situations very awkward.

On the last day, Sunday, the director did something very interesting.  They had the four romantics walking through the woods having awkward comedic conversations developing the climax of the plot, but they had them walking in two’s and there was a scene for every pair, so the two girls walked together in one, while the two guys walked together in another until they had all walked with everyone and built up the ultimately awkward scenes to come.  There is major conflict when Margaret leaves early Sunday and the two males are left to fight/compete over Sadee’s heart. After a few more very awkward encounters, nether of them end up winning and everybody goes their separate ways. Sadee finds herself back at the local comedy club, still single, but with a whole fresh plate of comedic material to make the crowd rumble in laughter.  Its kind of a sad ending though because you realize all the laughs she’s getting are from true tragic heartbreaking events she experienced.