Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Weekend’ on Hulu, a Clever Gem of a Comedy Starring ‘SNL’ Vet Sasheer Zamata

Now streaming free on Hulu, The Weekend is the logical step between director Stella Meghie’s other notable films, 2017 teen romance Everything, Everything and 2020’s romantic drama The Photograph. Theatrically released in 2019, The Weekend is a light, clever romantic comedy starring SNL alum Sasheer Zamata, and it’s just offbeat enough to be an under-the-radar gem.

THE WEEKEND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Zadie (Zamata) really doesn’t seem to be into hugging people. She leans in about a third of the way and doesn’t lift her arms and lets the other person do all the difficult embracing. It’s emblematic of her approach to life during the three years since she and Bradford (Tone Bell) broke up and decided to be tight platonic pals, something that sits with her like an elephant on a park bench, which is to say, smashingly, but in the literal sense of the word. She’s a standup comic whose routine is all about being pathetically single. The more she focuses on herself, the less she works on herself, just deepening the rut of her depression.

One of the ways Zadie expresses her pain is by coating herself with a sheen of dark snark. Nobody can tell if she’s joking or not when she says what everyone else might be scared to say. She just has this way of telling the unvarnished truth that makes it seem like she’s not being serious. It’s got to be difficult for others in her life, but for those of us watching her in a movie, their frustration is funny as hell. She’s like a sniper except she’s in the same room and aiming point blank, but nobody knows if the gun is loaded or not.

Anyway, she and Bradford planned a weekend trip to her mother Karen’s (Kym Whitley) bed-and-breakfast, but he invited along his girlfriend of two years, Margo (DeWanda Wise), possibly as a barrier to any potential manifestations of old, complicated feelings. This goes smashingly, again in the literal sense, with Zadie making every moment as awkward as possible, because misery loves company. Meanwhile, she banters in a lightly combative tone with her mother, who calls her out for her slovenly down-in-the-dumpishness: “Don’t slump!” and “Comb your hair!” Karen insists. Then an attractive gent named Aubrey (Y’lan Noel) shows up at the b&b, alone with himself and no others, turning the love triangle into a quadrangle, giving Zadie an out maybe, but also another person with whom she can redirect all modes of conversation to herself.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Jazzy clarinets on the soundtrack, complicated romantic interactions, a script stocked with understated zingers — well, The Weekend smacks of Woody Allen, for better or worse. Woody Allen, if he had worked with an all-Black cast of twentysomethings, which just doesn’t seem likely.

Performance Worth Watching: You’ll love Zamata for rendering Zadie a layer cake of complications, and funny in a funny-because-it’s-true kind of way.

Memorable Dialogue: Zadie sums herself up succinctly: “I constantly talk like a supporting actress in a romantic comedy.”

Sex and Skin: Just an amusing false start of an attempted doink in the backseat of a car.

Our Take: We all know someone who’s inability to be serious about anything makes them impossible to read, right? These people can be impossible — and they’re probably not standup comics, which gives Zadie another layer of offensive-defensiveness for everyone else to squint at quizzically. That’s what makes the character more than just a bundle of quirks existing for our amusement, or just an emotional wreck existing for our sympathy.

The film hinges on the four principals’ terrific chemistry — Margo senses something’s going on, and Bradford knows something’s going on and Zadie keeps saying something’s going on, but everybody doubts her sincerity. And Aubrey, well, he soon realizes he’s stepping into a mess, after just having stepped out of a mess of his own.

Although Meghie’s screenplay playfully explores various combinations of interaction among the four characters — and occasionally diverts into the complexities of the concerned mother-wayward daughter relationship — it doesn’t dig too deeply into these people. By that token, neither does it force any kind of emotional heaviness or quasi-profundity into the text; Meghie intends to keep it light, and maybe brush against some of the complexities of late-20s singlehood. The story peters out a bit toward the end, and errs on the side of slightness, but it’s a charmer nonetheless.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Weekend endears us to its characters, inspires plenty of laughs and has us wondering if Zamata is a movie star on the rise.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch The Weekend on Hulu