Every Other Weekend

Director: Nicole Garcia
(1990)

Actress turned director Nicole Garcia proved she knew how to make a female star shine with this intriguing but slight work that finds the acclaimed, beautiful aging actress Nathalie Baye portraying a has-been movie star hoping to reunite with the children she had ignored in order to advance her film career. In an act of desperation, the divorced mother kidnaps her children, driving them off on an impromptu road trip to Spain in order to bond with her exceedingly indifferent and angry son, still feeling neglected from all those years she’d put her career first. Baye’s husband who holds rightful custody follows them on their journey and while we know how it will all end only a few minutes into Garcia’s story, it’s still a moody, thoughtful and atmospheric film. While Baye is marvelous as usual, Every Other Weekend suffers from a great flaw by not developing the plot and character enough to make the viewer more involved in their voyage—instead of looking in on the family as a near-participant (as in the best family dramas), we feel instead like a hitchhiker the trio has picked up along the way, trying to add our own back-story and motives to fit with the events.