Nights and Weekends (2008)

People are voting emotionally.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Mattie (Greta Gerwig) and James (Joe Swanberg) are a struggling loving couple in Chicago. They break up and a year later, he calls her out of the blue. He has attained some success and she lives in New York. He is the subject of a photo shoot and the photographer even brings her into the picture. They try to reignite their relationship.This is a mumblecore indie. It's not that much written. The dialog is almost improvisational in its nature. The shooting style is strictly amateur indie. Swanberg plays it stiff initially as the foundational piece of the relationship. Gerwig brings an energy and charisma. Apparently, the film was shoot in two parts just like the on-screen relationship. There is a change in the characters especially Swanberg. He's more confident in the second part. This is a great introduction to two indie careers.

If I could have one relationship with a woman in my life be akin to the one Joe Swanberg's character possesses with Greta Gerwig's in Nights and Weekends, I'd die with a large sense of accomplishment. This relationship, rather romantic or very personal, is the kind everyone should experience one in their life, especially with someone of the opposite sex. The relationship with someone not related to you, whom you could talk openly with, share secrets, and feel downright in-place when you talk to them. That feeling of connection may have ironically been dwindled down to a stunning rarity with the popularity of smartphones and the internet, but its significance remains imperative to ones' life and well-being.Nights and Weekends - Joe Swanberg's fourth directorial effort and Greta Gerwig's first - is, in short, a small masterpiece; a satisfying, deeply personal mumblecore movie that exercises its right to be both meaningful and significant in the world of relationships and long-distance dating because of its realistic portrayal of characters in that current situation. It centers around the lives of James and Mattie (Swanberg and Gerwig, respectively), a couple who has desperately tried to make their relationship work despite their long-distances from each other. He lives in Chicago, while she lives in New York.The first half of the picture is devoted to them hanging out in James' town of Chicago, hanging around the city, but mostly engaging conversations during cuddle-time. These scenes allow for a wonderful, full-flesh intimacy session to take place amongst the characters. These are the kind of conversations I live for, in film and in real life. The honesty, poignancy, and often realism that comes out in these sessions will likely resonate with married couples, particularly those who have had to go the extra mile to make it work, whether it be locational, racial, or ideological boundaries.The second half takes place in Mattie's town of New York City, one year later. Production of the film was also halted for a year to give the actors the feeling of jumping into the characters one year later; a wise directorial move if you ask me. This is where we, and the characters, begin to question the viability of their relationship. They're not really meeting new people, or attempting to cheat on one another. They are just exhausted at their efforts of trying to make things work and perhaps it's time to shift from being in a committed relationship to being friends; the kind of people who talk about their relationships and are not in one together.But how do you go about doing that when you've been in a relationship for so long? How do you realistically say 'enough is enough' and you want to experiment with other priorities? When James and Mattie are awkwardly taking pictures at a photography place - perhaps out of predictable relationship convention as they both seem equally unmoved about the process - you can see they just don't seem to care how they look or behave around one another. It's a soul-crushing scene that makes the warmest heart turn cold.Joe Swanberg has made and been involved with almost twenty films over the course of seven years. Because of his stunning, prolific filmmaking behavior, you wouldn't think he allows himself much time to mature, look over what he did well and what he tripped up on in his previous films. However, Swanberg is one of the youngest, most mature directors I've yet to see in film. His sense of awareness on human cultures, as far as dating, relationships, and communications go are mostly accurate and believable. The ways he depicts online conversation and sex are rooted in believability and awkwardness, kind of like they are in real life. Of course he will make missteps in his career; it comes with the territory of being prolific and not going long-periods of time putting the camera down. At this point, especially after Nights and Weekends, I don't want Swanberg to break; his touching, naturalistic look on society and relationships through the lens of independent filmmaking is something we need in cinema, and the zealous way he films and releases his movies is something of a breakneck achievement in the field.Nights and Weekends contains brutal honesty about marriage, dating, and the hardships that come with the feel. It needs to be viewed by young adolescents who are either rushing into relationships, are desperate to be in one, or simply want to see the glimpse inside the world of a practical relationship. Swanberg and Gerwig conduct the film maturely, and their acting makes the relationship only more viable for the entire picture. The film, yet again, proves that when examining a relationship, keeping it simple, concise, and honest is the best and most meaningful approach.Starring and directed by: Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig.

The film is shot like a home made video, characters very realistic . The lead characters maintain a long distance relationship or try to , the film does not try to spice up moments . But there is one thing I would like to know.Is Joe Swanberg made to act bad as the script or is he a bad actor?, have not seen any of his films. If the first is true, as in the script defines his acting , then the film is plot less because a girl like Greta would not be thinking twice about holding a relationship with that character, even from 10 miles apart.Greta is vulnerable, with mood swings portrayed brilliantly as she always does, wonder the intimate scenes cold have been more passionate as they meet only after a while each time.

Though Swanberg's previous film "LOL", was not the most visually stunning, it was creative, and I found it quite interesting simply because it had something to say about how we relate to one another in this day and age. This film seems to want to say something as well, but the immature, whiny, uninteresting way the characters say it, has started to become a staple of the Mumblecore movement (to see the most blatant example of this, see "The Puffy Chair"...actually, don't). The majority of these films been festival darlings and been fairly well-received by critics. This is mostly due to the fact that many of the films have been able to strip away the traditional Hollywood artifice from their characters and allow them to exhibit some honest behavior, no matter how awkward. However, you get the sense that these middle-class, white, 20-somethings need something to fill their time besides thoughts of their own neuroses and navel-gazing.The allure of these films for many viewers is that the people on screen are "just like me", and the situations are "just like what happened to me yesterday". This could be interesting if only there were actually something at stake. The NY Times review summed it up better than I can, when it stated, "The problem with the movie is that James and Mattie exhibit little but shallow, infantile neurosis, with next to no hint of a complex — or even legible — inner life."