WHEN director Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was released in 2005, it was widely perceived as a watershed.
The story of a secretive and forbidden relationship between two cowboys propelled non-heterosexual relationships – seldom seen in ‘mainstream’ cinema – onto the screens of suburban multiplexes.
Since then, the floodgates haven’t exactly opened for gay-centric films to obtain wide distribution and release.
The truth is that an indie film such as Weekend – without the star power of a Jake Gyllenhaal or the late Heath Ledger – is unlikely to get much press, instead filed away as ‘special interest, niche or obscure’.
It’s a sad indictment of a seemingly progressive society that it won’t attract a broader audience, but then, perhaps there is also pleasure to be derived from discovering an unassuming little flick and having it unfold in intimate low-fi fashion before an audience wanting to experience something that might sit outside their ‘comfort zone’.
Weekend hones in on one weekend involving Russell (Tom Cullen), a swimming pool lifeguard, who gets drunk with his ‘straight’ mates on a Friday night before heading out to a nightclub, where he meets Glen (Chris New), an art student.
A one-night stand becomes much more, as the two have sex, take drugs and ultimately, learn more about where they fit into the status quo.
Weekend is as close to a documentary as you will get, without being one.
Its two central performances from Cullen (Best Actor winner at the Nashville Film Festival 2011) and New (a feature film debutant) are astonishingly authentic; as if watching an intimate two-person play, or even two men in real-time with the camera unobtrusively rolling, unbeknownst to either of them.
A cautionary warning, however, shouldn’t be neglected. Some might see the explicit drug-taking scenes – in the vein of gritty Aussie drama Candy – as romanticising substance abuse, though I doubt that was writer and director Andrew Haigh’s intention.
What he has crafted is a realist rendering of two people who fall in love, with a beautiful, raw candour.
WEEKEND (MA15+)
Directed by: Andrew Haigh
Starring: Tom Cullen, Chris New
Screening: from January 26
Rating: Four-and-a-half stars
Reviewed by: Emilia Vranjes