Hey, The Weekend (a 20-minute short from 2016 on Amazon Prime) isn't about time travel - though it is reminiscent in more than the title of the 1945 classic The Lost Weekend (which actually isn't about a time travel either, though its title is suggestive) - and it's not even science fiction. But The Weekend is nonetheless sensitive, well written and portrayed, and definitely worth watching.It tells the story of a guy, recently jilted, who takes in a woman he meets on a walkway by a beach. She offers him French fries, he declines, but changes his mind, and off we go.
I won't tell you any more of the story, so you can enjoy seeing it yourself. I will say that, except for one big thing, the story is about nothing - other than two souls brushing against each other, somehow finding a few days of peace in the noise and craziness of the real world all around us, and that's everything.
A short like this - the epitome of McLuhan's cool, because it bids you, the viewer, to fill so much of it in with your own thoughts and feelings (see McLuhan in an Age of Social Media for more) - is absolutely dependent on the acting. Danielle Guldin is quietly outstanding as Chloe, the bearer of the French fries, and Taso Mikroulis is just right as the guy.
The Weekend takes place in New York City. The shore and the apartment could be anywhere, and there's just one small shopping-for-groceries scene where the street is clearly in the city, but somehow New York City is very much a part of this short film, which somehow also gives it a kinship in my mind to some of the work of Woody Allen. All of which is to say that Dennis Cahlo, who wrote, directed, and has a cameo in The Weekend, did a fine job indeed with this movie.
It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...
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