Weekend

Writes Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com: "I’ve long maintained that gay-straight cinematic equality will finally arrive when a character’s sexuality, however interesting or titillating it may be, is not seen as delivering an important message about tolerance or self-empowerment or some other boring abstraction. I liked both “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Kids Are All Right” a lot, but there’s no doubt they’re both finely crafted teachable moments. The examples I relish are few and far between: Kristin Scott Thomas as the protagonist’s lesbian best friend in “Tell No One,” Kieran Culkin as the title character’s gay roommate in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” Demetri Martin as the gay hero of “Taking Woodstock” (although his character’s sexuality is, if anything, too irrelevant). No, gentlemen, I’m not including the numerous films where allegedly lesbian characters are introduced as salacious male-fantasy side dishes. I don’t judge you for finding that arousing, believe me! But it doesn’t count...

"Clearly the sexuality of the guys in “Weekend” is a central issue, and the film’s presentation of gay sex is funny, raw, raunchy and frank (although there’s little nudity and no NC-17 content, if you’re wondering). Oddly, though, by confronting the audience’s mixed emotions about homosexuality directly, Haigh eventually gets to a place where it doesn’t matter that much. By the final scenes of “Weekend,” it’s no longer a film about the sexual-political issues Russell and Glen quarrel over or the class-divided, unprepossessing social and geographic landscape of Nottingham — which Haigh captures beautifully — or the pervasive cultural climate of homophobia. We move through all that stuff and end up with a story about two people who are suddenly and unexpectedly besotted with each other and don’t know what to do about it, which is incredibly specific in this case but also just about as universal as you can get.."

The full review here.