The Weekend

Three women in their 70s, bound by four decades of friendship, gather at a beach house on the Australian coast to clear out the belongings of Sylvie, their fourth member, who died 11 months earlier. Sylvie's partner, Gail, has moved to Dublin and instructed them to sort through the house at Bittoes, a once-bohemian coastal enclave now grown expensive, and take anything they want. What should be a simple task becomes a reckoning with aging, loss, and the secrets that have silently shaped their lives.

Jude, a former restaurateur, arrives first. Controlled and sharp-tongued, she has lived for nearly 40 years in a secret relationship with Daniel, a married man. Their annual week at Sylvie's house each January has anchored Jude's inner life, and now the house will be sold. She begins cleaning with aggressive efficiency. Sylvie's death has opened "strange caverns of distance" between the three surviving friends (10), and Jude finds herself seized by irrational anger, resenting other people's grief as a trespass on Sylvie's death.

Wendy, a 75-year-old public intellectual and author, is stranded on the freeway with her elderly dog, Finn, after her battered Honda breaks down in brutal heat. Finn, a deaf, arthritic creature Sylvie gave Wendy as a puppy after her husband Lance's funeral, trembles in her lap. The dog pulled her back into the world when grief nearly destroyed her, and she refuses to let him go, though everyone insists it is time. She drives on to Bittoes.

Adele, a 72-year-old actress, cannot bring herself to board her train. That morning, her partner Liz told her they would need to talk when Adele returned from the coast. Adele instantly understood the relationship is ending. With her bank account nearly empty, no acting work in a year, and rental income that has not arrived, she fears the homelessness she has seen reported among older women. She arrives at Bittoes by taxi.

Once all three are in the house, Jude assigns tasks: She takes the kitchen, Wendy the laundry, Adele the upstairs bedroom. The work exposes their frictions. Jude insists Finn stay outside. Adele barely works, absorbed in Sylvie's record collection. Wendy cuts her leg on a broken blender jug without feeling it, a failure of sensation that alarms them all as a sign of decline. Jude, peering through the kitchen window at Finn, is shaken when Sylvie's face seems to appear in the dog's features, her dead friend's "ghost breath" condensing on the glass (88).

The tensions of old roles persist: Jude controls, Adele performs, Wendy endures. At the beach, Jude flatly tells Wendy she is a terrible driver. Adele strides into the ocean while Jude watches from the shore, privately reckoning with her dread of aging and the advanced-care directive she keeps at home.

On the walk to dinner, they encounter Sonia Dreyfus, Adele's longtime professional rival, and Joe Gillespie, the young artistic director of the Box Factory Theatre. Sonia asks patronizingly whether Adele is teaching now. Drawing on a calm she found in watching Finn's unbothered presence, Adele responds with devastating poise: She is not working because she cannot think of anyone worth working with. Wendy lingers long enough to see the composure drain from Sonia's face as Gillespie strides ahead without waiting for her.

The next morning, Adele encounters Gillespie in a park at dawn. To her astonishment, he asks her advice, terrified his career is failing. Adele sees his fear and feels they are equals. Back at the house, she privately admits to Wendy that Liz has ended things and begs Wendy not to tell Jude.

That evening, Adele has invited Sonia and Gillespie for Christmas Eve drinks. Gillespie chooses to stay for dinner, humiliating Sonia, who departs alone on the inclinator, a steep rail lift connecting the hilltop house to the street below. Gillespie eats greedily and talks about himself. Adele, partly high on marijuana, enters a euphoric state, dancing to records, convinced she has discovered a new artistic truth through Finn's animal presence and that Gillespie will collaborate with her on a revival of Martha from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Jude and Wendy see what Adele cannot: Gillespie has pulled out his phone and is recording her, laughing not with her but at her. A violent thunderclap shakes the house and the power goes out. Jude casts Gillespie out. He calls them "fucking hilarious" and pockets his phone.

In the furious argument that follows, Adele, shattered and lashing out, reveals a secret she has held for decades: Lance and Sylvie had an affair while Wendy was in New York. Wendy is undone, recognizing instantly that it is true. Finn, terrorized by the storm and the shouting, vomits on the white sofa and bolts through the open door into the violent night. Wendy runs after him.

She searches the streets, calling his name though she knows he cannot hear her. Lightning knocks her to her knees by the jetty. She hears his cries beneath the boards, crawls under, and wraps her body around him on the cold sand. When the storm subsides, they walk through the dark streets and come upon a small church holding midnight Mass by candlelight. The priest welcomes them inside. Wendy sinks into a pew while Finn sleeps in the aisle.

Jude and Adele find them there. Jude enters the church, watches the congregation take Communion, and kneels on the worn wood. She acknowledges there is no God but sings the hymns of her childhood anyway. Adele waits in the car, knowing she has done something unforgivable. Jude tells her, "It was always going to come out. It always does" (252).

The three women reunite in silence. On the drive back, Jude's phone chimes with a message from Daniel's daughter, Nicole: Daniel has collapsed and will not regain consciousness. Nicole orders Jude to stay away from the family. Adele takes the wheel and drives them to Sydney, to the hospital. Daniel is in intensive care; only immediate family is admitted. Daniel's wife, Helena, and his children emerge from the ward and walk past Jude without acknowledgment.

Jude, who has never needed her friends for anything, turns to Wendy and Adele and asks, "What should I do?" (254). She weeps in their arms.

At dawn on Christmas Day, Adele drives them back to Bittoes. Finn follows the three women onto the sand, circles them, and lies down. They wade into the cold ocean. Jude is shocked and afraid; Wendy watches the approaching swell with dread. Adele floats on her back, then swims to them and takes each woman's hand.

The narrative projects forward: Wendy will let the vet come for Finn, will visit her estranged son Jamie in Prague, will publish her book. She will understand that Lance's betrayal with Sylvie arose from loneliness, not cruelty, and that she made many mistakes. Jude looks to the horizon, knowing she must live with only a trace of Daniel. Adele acknowledges that Sylvie is dead, Liz is gone, and the future is unknown, but her frightened friends are gripping her hands. Adele tells them when to dive beneath the approaching wave. They plunge under and are set down gently on their feet. They reach for one another and wait for the next wave.