Film

Le Week-End

A wry, tender comedy about a long marriage hitting turbulence. Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are a British couple returning to Paris to rekindle something—but the city exposes how much they've calcified. It's funny and uncomfortable in equal measure, the kind of film that makes you squirm and laugh at recognizing yourself. For anyone who's been with someone long enough to forget why.

TMDb rating3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy sharp, talky comedy about long marriages, where the laughs keep turning into wince-inducing arguments, and you don't need the characters to be likeable to be fascinated by them.

Skip it if you want a gentle, feel-good trip to Paris; the barbs between the leads can feel uncomfortably sharp, and the mood swings wear thin for some viewers.

What it asks of you: Ninety-three minutes, unhurried in its wandering, with the tone swinging from awkward laughter to raw unease; it rewards close attention to faces and pauses rather than plot.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Another Year2010

Mike Leigh's portrait of a happy couple and the friends who orbit their contentment—equally funny and bleak. The same unflinching eye turned on long-term relationships, with Broadbent in a different register entirely.

But Deliberately bleak. If you want resolution or uplift, this withholds it with intent.

Another Year poster

Hope Springs2012

Streep and Jones as a long-married couple seeking therapy to rescue their intimacy. Takes the subject seriously without ever losing its humour. Warm without being soft.

But Slightly more mainstream-friendly than Le Week-End; if you want edge and ambiguity, it softens things a little.

Hope Springs poster

The Leisure Seeker2018

Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland in an RV, road-tripping, bickering, remembering. Elegiac and full of dry comedy. Perfect company for this exact story.

But Quieter paced; some will find it too gentle, almost wistful rather than dramatically urgent.

The Leisure Seeker poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Le Week-End

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Marjorie Prime2017

Both ask whether marriage is ever anything but two people in adjacent solitudes, and whether the answer matters.

Jon Hamm as an AI recreation of a dead husband, visited by his widow (Geena Davis) in a near-future. Science-fiction premise applied to the exact problem of Le Week-End: can you actually reach someone you've lived with, or are you always just talking to your own idea of them?

But Speculative and conceptual; if you want realism and emotional directness, the artifice might feel cold.

Marjorie Prime poster
More like this (6)

Tamara Drewe2010

Roger Michell directed both this and Le Week-End. Same sharp eye for social awkwardness and desire; this one's an ensemble comedy set in the Dorset countryside. Lighter, but with real teeth.

But Moves faster and covers more ground; if you want emotional depth to match the comedy, this scatters itself.

Tamara Drewe poster

45 Years2015

Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay in a masterclass about how a single revelation can frost a marriage. One week. Devastating and quiet. Broadbent adjacent in every way that matters.

But A funeral dirge compared to Le Week-End. Needs patience and tolerance for watching something die.

45 Years poster

Lost in Translation2003

Sofia Coppola's meditation on disconnection, ageing, and the strange intimacy of being lost together. Not a marriage film, but spiritually adjacent—that specific loneliness of being with someone.

But Deliberately paced and oblique. If you want plot engines and clarity, this dissolves them.

Lost in Translation poster

Bent1997

Ian McKellen and Clive Owen as imprisoned lovers. Sounds like a drama, plays as tragicomedy about commitment and desire under impossible pressure. Darkly funny where Le Week-End is ruefully funny.

But Set in a Nazi concentration camp. The stakes are incomparably higher; tonal whiplash if you're not prepared.

Bent poster

A Serious Man2009

Coen Brothers dissection of a marriage and faith falling apart. Tragicomic, absurdist, built on the same observation that relationships corrode through ordinary incompatibility and time.

But Denser and more abstract; if you want emotional clarity, this sprawls into uncertainty on purpose.

A Serious Man poster

Tokyo Story1953

Both understand that the ordinary deterioration of bodies and intimacy is the actual subject of drama, not plot twists.

An elderly Japanese couple visit their adult children in Tokyo. That's it. Ozu watches them with such tenderness and specificity that it becomes the whole of human experience. Not in English, made seventy years ago, fundamentally about smallness and time. If Le Week-End made you ache, this will break your heart gently.

But Deliberately static, almost no plot, in Japanese, made in 1953. Requires patience that contemporary filmmaking has trained us out of.

Tokyo Story poster

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Recommended by

45 Years, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, A Good Year, The Trip to Spain, Trophy Wife, Mixed Nuts, The Other Side of Hope, Udon, Pot Luck