Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent in Le Weekend

Saw the previews for this movie (trailer) several times last spring, and it didn’t look promising. In it, two past-middle-aged Brits have a madcap weekend in Paris, fumbling around in their relationship, the wife mercurial—laughing one minute, enraged the next—the husband hoping for sex. They’re living high but low on cash, and full of petty irritations. For once, the previews were right. Plus they showed all the best barbs. How this ended up in our Netflix queue, I don’t know.

Still, the acting was flawless, with Jim Broadbent as the husband and Lindsay Duncan as his wife. A wonderful smarmy performance by Jeff Goldblum as a sycophantic fellow-academic who outs the fact that the couple’s lives are falling apart. Olly Alexander has a juicy part as Goldblum’s bored son. Another dinner party disaster, uncomfortable to watch, yet unbelievable.

Critics liked it. The Rotten Tomatoes reviewers’ rating: 89 percent, but audiences seemed more in my camp: 55.