Remember when Leighton Meester played as a creepy roommate in 2011? Yes, I do, and that’s one of the reason I chose to have a dorm room of my own when I was in university…just coz…And this is also played by Christina Wolfe, you know her, she’s the latest Batwoman. Yes, I knowLeighton Meester is the OG.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I saw Leighton in the limelight ever since Gossip Girl, and I think this new Netflix movie she is starring is giving us the Leighton we missed. The story is about best friends spending the time abroad for a weekend to party and catch up, that’s all we do, right? But what will you do if the weekend you expected to be just a weekend full of fun turns out to be a weekend you will regret having? And what if you wake up only to find out later on that your friend died? or worst, what will you do if you became the prime suspect in a murder case?

Yes, getting the chills yet? The story is quite interesting but not everyone knows that this story was adapted from a book of the same title that was published last 2020 and written by Sarah Alderson. I have read the book before so I get all the heads up here while watching the movie but of course, they won’t follow the book as is, although I think getting to compress the whole story in just an hour and thirty minutes is a little challenging. Do you wanna know the differences from the book VS the movie? I mean, scroll down if you do!

Like the usual, if you want to see some spoilers on both novel and the film then here’s your key…

So in the book, it went like the usual, weekend party, with drugs and booze, and they were in Lisbon; the movie was set in Croatia. When Orla wakes up, she suspected of Kate being missing so she track their whereabouts the whole night and discovered on security camera that the two guys they brought home, have stolen Kate’s stuff and when they found Kate’s stuff, she found her phone. When they eventually knew that Kate was missing, Rob (Orla’s husband) flew to Lisbon to accompany her. They discovered Kate’s body and Rob was there which was not seen in the movie coz Rob was taking care of their daughter. Orla, she’s Beth in the film, played by Leighton, discovered that Rob and Kate had an affair after she managed to open Kate’s phone using her fingerprint. Rob then told Orla that she doesn’t have anything to do with Kate’s death. However, because of the affair, Rob and Orla got divorced.

Then enters Nunes, he is Pavic in the movie, the police officer which Kate saw in the security cameras (along with finding out that their Airbnb landlord is dying on all of his tenants.) so basically the story has rolled into thinking that maybe Nunes was involved but he was telling everyone that he just offered Kate a ride from the station so, turn of events, Nunes was presumed guilty for Kate’s death coz all the cards point at him as the killer. So eventually, the case is closed. They allowed Orla to go back to London and take care of her daughter. Since Rob and Orla are divorced, Rob gets only to visit their daughter, so when the time comes for Rob to visit their daughter, Orla receives a message from Konstandin (This is Zain, the taxi driver in the movie), it was a security footage where Kate was having an argument with a man. Konstandin thinks it was Nunes but Orla watched the video over and over again until she recognizes the man in the video…it was Rob. But too late for her to get her vixen skills coz now Rob is gone with their daughter. Yes, that’s how the book ended. The movie however, in my opinion gave us an ending on the story, in the movie, Beth discovered the bits and pieces when she found a bead from the necklace she gave Kate on the day she arrived in Croatia and the police were able to arrest Rob before he can even hurt Beth or their daughter. Too much for an ending but yes, Beth and her daughter are together.

The movie and the book were 70% similar considering the circumstances and difficulty of fitting one book in one film, I guess it’s a big thumbs up, although it could have been better if they had the cliffhanger in the ending, right? All in all, I would give the movie 85% and the book 90% wonderroanne rating, yes, I liked the book better than the movie.

A little advice: Read the book before watching the movie, it will help you bring the movie into life a little more than by watching the movie first.

The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson is available on the bookstores and in Amazon Kindle.