Nights and Weekends

D: Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig; with Swanberg, Gerwig

So close to the way things are in real life it’s barely a movie, Swanberg and Gerwig’s Nights and Weekends is the revealing story of two people during two discrete periods separated by the span of a year, first as long-distance lovers and then as long-distance ex-lovers. The narrative, in Swanberg fashion, is entirely improvised, and the co-directors’ respective characters come off as extremely volatile and in-the-moment. Several of the dialogue exchanges, overflowing with fumbles and hems and haws, surpass the penetration-inclusive love scenes in viewer awkwardness – erect nipples, cock, and all. But it’s these scenes dissecting the irrational nature of human emotion that make this romantic drama worth watching among the hordes of rom-coms rehashing the same breakup scene time and time again. There is no breakup scene in Nights and Weekends, just ample nudity and graphic sex.

This article appears in March 14 • 2008.

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