As the film opens, Celia Green (Patricia Clarkson) and her husband, fitness center magnate Malcolm (Chris Mulkey), are at their opulent Lake Tahoe vacation home awaiting the arrival of their two sons to see out the end of summer. First to arrive is older son Theo (Zachary Booth), a television writer with cinematic ambitions who comes with an entourage that includes his boss (Rutina Wesley), who he has given his screenplay to read, her husband (Fran Kranz), the star of his show (Jayma Mays) and, seemingly almost as an afterthought, his new boyfriend Luke (Devon Graye). Following close behind is younger brother Roger (Joseph Cross), who arrives with a big secret—he has just been fired from his financial firm after losing them $30 million because of a simple typo—and girlfriend Vanessa (Alexia Rasmussen), who yearns to place her boutique flavored waters in Malcolm's gyms and despairs of ever landing in the good graces of the exacting Celia.
Right from the get-go, the weekend is pretty much a disaster. For starters, Celia and Malcolm are considering selling the home—one of their two vacation homes—but do not know how to break it to the kids. Both sons have hardly arrived before snapping at Celia, though she is quick to be dismissive of practically anyone with the misfortune to get into her eye-line. Luke has a serious allergic reaction at their first dinner together and Celia does not distinguish herself when she asks whether using the EpiPen is absolutely necessary because of the cost—this coming from someone who apparently refuses to buy anything that does not include some form of ecologically-minded surcharge. The next day, the Green's loyal caretaker (Julio Oscar Mechoso) is electrocuted and rushed off to the hospital with his cook wife (Julie Carmen). Add in the usual squabbles, misunderstandings and revelations and most people will find themselves thinking that by comparison, Fredo Corleone got off relatively easy during his last visit to Tahoe.
"Last Weekend" is such a stridently unpleasant experience that it almost feels at times as though screenwriter Tom Dolby (no relation to the singer who once illustrated the pleasures and perils of being blinded by science) has actually written an extremely poker-faced satire of that cinematic subgenre featuring well-to-do dysfunctional families ripping into each other over the holidays before finally Coming to Terms with Things. If nothing else, this would explain some of the more obnoxious and clueless moves by the characters, such as the aforementioned EpiPen incident or the moment when they sneer at their neighbors for being nouveau riche clowns because they made their fortune in air conditioning instead of something more hallowed and traditional like fitness center franchising. As it turns out, it seems that not only does Dolby intend the material to be taken relatively seriously—yes, even the scene where Celia has a cathartic breakthrough when she washes some dirty dishes all by herself—but he wants us to somehow empathize with the characters and their elevated sense of ennui. The problem is that while he can illustrate hateful self-absorption handily enough on the surface, he betrays no idea or interest as to what makes such people tick, and, as a result, scene after scene just collapses under the weight of its own unpleasantness.
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