Two people who fall in love while separated by 800 miles find it's hard to stay friends while living in the same city in this low-key independent drama. James (Joe Swanberg) and Mattie (Greta Gerwig) are in love and trying to make their relationship work. But James lives and works in Chicago, while Mattie calls New York home, and though they try to visit one another as often as they can, their infrequent weekends together are punctuated by telephone calls, e-mails, on-line chatting, and sending
digital pictures back and forth. As much as Mattie cares for James, in time the space between them is too much to deal with and they break up. Twelve months later, James' career as a video-game designer is taking off, and a new project necessitates a move to New York City; while they're no longer lovers, he tries to reconnect with Mattie, though his recent success has added a new and uncomfortable element to their relationship. Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig wrote, directed, and produced Nights and Weekends as well as playing the two leads; the film received its world premiere at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
This movie belongs to its stars, who also wrote and produced. You can't say their acting is good or bad because they are not really acting. They're just being themselves, pubic hair and all.
Night and Weekends simultaneously plays like a critique of the mumblecore ethos and an especially obnoxious example of its whimsical tics and insouciant solipsism.
Its surprisingly structured depiction of this relationship and its many private rituals and performances, which the film's unforgiving style continually strips bare
One imagines the film is making a gentle attempt to be a modern Scenes from a Marriage, and while that's a tall order, Gerwig and Swanberg aren't terribly far from the mark.
If Cassavetes's films inspired future filmmakers with their DIY aesthetic, then Swanberg and Gerwig's efforts seem calculated to discourage enthusiastic amateurs from getting anywhere near a camera.
Nights and Weekends marks writer-director Joe Swanberg's fourth consecutive film at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and it's quite possibly his strongest work yet.
"Nights and Weekends" starts with Mattie(Greta Gerwig) and James(Joe Swanberg) removing each other's clothes before they can even get all the way into his apartment. James lives in Chicago while Mattie attends nursing school in New York City.(It is never explicitly stated but I think they met in college and live apart
due to Mattie's continuing education.) So, they only get a little time to spend together which they try to make the most of.Written and directed by Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg, "Nights and Weekends" is a pointed examination of the dynamics of a long distance relationship. The film is both emotionally and physically raw, encompassing the push and pull of their particular relationship. Their physical attraction pulls them together while a clash of personalities, especially Mattie's food issues which are petty beyond belief, only serves to make a tough situation harder. In the end, I would have liked some of this to be the result of economics but you take what you can get.
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