An American wakes up in a cozy hotel in Croatia, violently hungover and dazed from the night before. The room is strewn with clothes, the counter dotted with empty wine glasses. An unexpected blackout has rendered Beth’s (Leighton Meester) memory of the previous few hours into a few incoherent shards, ones she fears putting together. Relatable content for many women at some point in their lives, and thus a compelling starting point for The Weekend Away, a brisk and absorbing if increasingly thin thriller about a girls’ holiday weekend gone wrong.
The Weekend Away, from the Strangerland director Kim Farrant, opens with a woman’s body floating in calm water, so you can assume Beth’s holiday in Croatia with best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe) will end in at least one casualty. The road to that point is initially sleek and promising, with a taut first third that quickly illustrates the women’s strained thirtysomething friendship and sets up a decently plausible mystery. Beth is a new mother barely out from the haze of sleepless nights and post-partum depression. Kate, blonde and beguiling, is a social butterfly reeling from a recent divorce that’s sent her into a black hole of hedonistic narcissism.
