One of the Girls

Thirty-one-year-old Lexi is getting married to Ed, the first man she has ever loved. She and five of her friends came from London to Greece for a “hen weekend” to celebrate the engagement. Lexi is less excited about the weekend than her best friend Bella, who organized it all and who is so thrilled she can’t stop talking. Bella’s girlfriend, Fen, seems troubled, but brushes it off when Lexi asks about it. The rest of the women are stopping for weekend provisions. As the cab drives over the hill, the villa (owned by Fen’s aunt) comes into view. It sits beside the ocean on top of a hill, with no other houses around it. The scenery is breathtaking, but Lexi can’t help feeling nervous, like perhaps she shouldn’t be here.

Robyn walks down the grocery aisles, annoyed that she’s been chosen to perform this task while the others go ahead to the villa. Robyn is a close friend of Lexi’s. She is going through a divorce and has a young child whom she left at home for the first time. Robyn feels like her life is on a downturn and is frustrated with herself. She doesn’t really want to be in Greece or attending a hen party (because she’s dealing with her own divorce), but she doesn’t want to disappoint Lexi, either. She thinks about how surprising it is that Lexi would marry, as Lexi lived a wild lifestyle as a dancer until an injury put a stop to her career. Lexi met her fiancé Ed soon after. Robyn catches up with Eleanor, Ed’s sister, who grabs more food items. The two women leave together and find Ana, Lexi’s other friend (whom Robyn considers to be emotionally stronger than herself), waiting outside. Robyn overhears Ana mention that she wishes she hadn’t come to Greece.

Though the women form a collective and, in the interludes, narrate in a collective voice, each has her own reasons for attending the hen weekend, and some didn’t want to attend at all. One woman’s reason for attending wasn’t known until it was too late.

Fen feels a strong sense of unease as she unlocks the villa. She has both positive and negative memories of it, but wishes she could just remember the good things, like spending time with her bohemian aunt and all her friends. Bella is enthralled by the rustic beauty of the stonework, but all Fen wants to do is leave. Some of the women go out to see the view and notice the steep drop of a cliff. Fen is angry with Bella after finding out that she lied to them throughout their relationship about why she lost her job as a nurse. (It is later revealed that Bella accidentally gave Eleanor’s husband, Sam, a drug to which he was allergic, causing his death). Fen looks in the mirror and recalls Nico telling her she was “disgusting,” and she decides to go for a run, leaving the others behind.

Bella has been looking forward to the getaway weekend because she wants to spend time with Lexi before she gets married. Bella finds Ed dull and doesn’t really understand why Lexi is marrying him, though she tries. Bella and Lexi go up to the master bedroom, where Lexi will be sleeping, and look out over the ocean. They decide to go swimming, and Bella puts on lipstick and a brand new bathing suit. Lexi can tell that something is off with Bella and Fen, but Bella lies and says everything is fine. She reluctantly follows Lexi down the winding stairs to the beach, wishing instead to have gone swimming in the pool. Lexi dives into the water while Bella takes her time, checking the sea floor as she goes. When Bella looks up and sees the other women arrive, she tells Lexi they should swim out to some rocks together, hoping to spend time just the two of them.

Robyn hikes up to the top of the cliff to find reception and call home before her son Jack goes to bed, but when she calls, she learns that he already went to bed. Disappointed, she looks over to see Fen running at an admirable pace and laments how out of shape she herself has been ever since having Jack. Robyn admires Fen’s beauty and rebellious aesthetic as she runs over to say hello, and she kicks herself for judging Fen before getting to know her. Fen asks Robyn about meeting Lexi, and Robyn thinks about how she has known Lexi since they were both eleven. Lexi’s mother was a ballerina with an alcohol use disorder, while her father was a race car driver. Robyn, on the other hand, came from a much more conventional life. Still, they connected, and two years later, they met Bella. Robyn was fascinated by Bella, who was always unabashedly herself and was never afraid to admit she preferred dating women.

Robyn feels a little jealous and disappointed when she sees Bella and Lexi swimming together, as it always felt like the three of them had a special dynamic. When Fen invites Robyn to go hiking with her tomorrow, Robyn agrees, feeling a sense of youthful thrill she almost thought she had lost.

Each of the women came to the island with a secret, some more shocking and severe than others. While one brought some secret pills and another some gin, one woman brought a sculpture of Lexi, which by the end of the weekend was broken and taken by the police as evidence.

Unlike the other women, Ana feels uncomfortable and confined within the stone walls of the villa. She doesn’t like the fact that there’s no phone signal inside, and she is startled when Lexi appears at her bedroom door to invite her downstairs for drinks. She didn’t want to leave her son Luca or spend the money for the trip, but her sister convinced her to do it. Ana feels agitated when Lexi closes the door and when Lexi almost sees her passport. Lexi mentions how glad she is that Ana will be at her wedding, but Ana already knows she won’t be attending.

Eleanor prepares some snacks for everyone and thinks about the day her brother Ed announced that he had met Lexi. Eleanor knew that Lexi was a dancer on MTV and had a wild lifestyle before meeting Ed, and she was surprised to find she liked her. When Lexi comes in and offers to help with the snacks, Eleanor declines, preferring to be alone while she deals with food. She looks at Lexi and notices her stark, precise beauty. Eleanor remembers how she initially didn’t want to attend the hen weekend, until something in an email swayed her opinion.

Ana watches Bella and Robyn interact as they set up photos of Lexi on a table outside. As a sign language interpreter, Ana is particularly sensitive to other people’s body language, and she notices that Robyn and Bella seem somehow awkward together despite having been friends for years. Ana remembers that when she met Bella, many of her expressions and movements seemed forced or exaggerated, and Bella’s smiles often seemed the opposite of how she really felt. Bella also insisted that Lexi sit beside her on the plane. Ana gets the sense that Bella wants to lay claim to her friendship with Lexi, and she doesn’t want to let it intimidate or bother her. Ana and Lexi met at Lexi’s yoga class and connected right away. Lexi and Ana went shopping for Lexi’s wedding dress together, and Lexi asked to keep it a secret from Bella.

Eleanor is still in the kitchen with Lexi, who asks if she’s ever been to Greece before. Eleanor answers that she went once with Sam, her fiancé who recently died. The conversation reminds Eleanor of growing up and always feeling like a social outcast. She was never quite sure how to fit in or act around others, and this anxiety followed her into adulthood. Sam had similar experiences and understood Eleanor, but he died just 10 months into their relationship. Eleanor hears the loud sound of Bella’s laughter outside, and her anxiety flares.

All the women wanted a holiday filled with good food and good conversation, and all felt they deserved the break from their lives. At the same time, however, one of the women was also thinking that someone deserved to be killed.

Bella grabs a drink (planning to have several) and makes a toast to Lexi. She craves their younger years when they would let loose and go wild, and she plans to surprise the other women with more exciting plans tomorrow. Robyn suggests that Lexi open her gifts next; she has asked everyone to make something for Lexi that represents their friendship. Bella found the idea silly but agreed, and Lexi opens Bella’s present first. Bella’s gift, wrapped in tin foil, is a sequin halter top reminiscent of their youth, and it makes Lexi smile. Ana’s gift is a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and Bella realizes she didn’t even know Lexi liked to read. Robyn’s gift is a photo album filled with pictures from their younger days. The final gift, from Eleanor, is a bronze sculpture she made of Lexi in a dancer’s pose. Lexi is amazed by the gift, and Bella declares it the “winner.”

Eleanor feels shame and embarrassment as everyone marvels at the beauty and precision of the sculpture. They compliment Eleanor on her work, but she can sense that it goes beyond the expectations of the task she was presented. Eleanor always feels like she can’t quite get things right, but when she notices Bella kissing the sculpture, she makes a joke about it, relieving some of the stress in her mind but not removing it.

Lexi lies awake in the hot, dark room, convincing herself that the reason she can’t sleep must have to do with first night jitters. She looks out the window onto the terrace and thinks about Ed, wondering if she’s really capable of committing to one man for the rest of her life. She remembers sitting with Bella and talking about how they would never get married, but inside Lexi knows that she never really wanted the wild life. It was what her father expected, and he disliked any sign of depression or sadness. Suddenly, Lexi notices someone floating face down in the pool.

Eleanor lies floating in the pool, unable to sleep just like Lexi. Lexi suddenly reaches in and pulls Eleanor out by the hair, having mistakenly thought she was dead. Lexi knows that Eleanor tried to end her life following her fiancé’s death. Eleanor explains that she was just floating to escape the heat, and they both laugh. Lexi tries to say something more about what Eleanor has been through, but Eleanor cuts the conversation short and leaves, feeling embarrassed and knowing she still won’t be able to sleep.